Political organizations

Political parties try to win elections and run government, so they gather many interests under one label and take positions on a wide range of issues. Interest groups do not run candidates for office. They try to influence policy, usually on a narrow set of issues that matter to their members, such as guns, the environment or one industry.

That difference in scope, broad for parties and narrow for groups, is the fundamental one.

Each choice

• A. Parties pay for campaign ads all the time, so no such ban exists.
• B (correct). Parties take positions across many issues to build a majority, while interest groups usually focus on a few.
• C. Interest groups lobby Congress and federal agencies constantly, so they are not mainly local.
• D. There is no general rule that parties are regional while groups are even across the states.
• E. Disclosure rules differ from one kind of organization to another, and the PACs that interest groups form must report to the FEC. A campaign finance detail is not the basic difference.