Political parties have become increasingly unpopular and have lost a great amount of power because of it. Interest groups are slowly picking up where parties left behind and are becoming more and more important not only in mobilizing voters, but also in lobbying government officials to aide their cause. In the early 1900's, parties solely were in charge of the nomination process. A small group of party leaders, also known as a caucus, would choose …showed first 75 words of 1048 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1048 total…determining who will represent them in a general election, it is interest groups who will decide what the interests of the nominees will be. If an interest group deems a nominee's position as being unfavorable, they will do whatever is necessary to ensure that the nominee is not successful. After all, was the GOP successful in 1994 because of the party's name, or was it because large groups like AARP and the NRA were behind them?