ABSTRACT
The Democratic and Republican national party organizations are probably more powerful now than they have ever been. Today's Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) are multimillion-dollar fund-raising and candidate-support operations. Officially, each major party's supreme national authority is the national convention it holds every four years to nominate a presidential candidate. Each party's national committee is a gathering of representatives from all its state parties; its leaders run the national party on a daily basis. The national Republican network includes small business groups, the National Rifle Association, and groups of conservative Christians. Although these groups are not formally a part of the party organizations, they communicate extensively with party organization leaders and play a big role in party campaigns. A party organization that supports candidates' campaigns with money and other resources, as opposed to running the campaigns itself, can be termed a service party.
