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This paper examines the relative importance of national forces, local forces, and candidate‐related factors on the contribution patterns of national party organizations to congressional candidates. I test two macro‐level models: a Party Resources Allocation model and a Candidate Selection model. The results provide evidence for an indirect as opposed to a direct mechanism—party organizations provide financing based on the candidate‐related factors, whereas local forces strongly affect candidate selection. As a result, while evidence exists that party actors may be employing national maximization strategies, the strategies used serve only to reemphasize local as opposed to national concerns.

We examine the politics of the strategic agenda. Abstracting a politics on the liberal-conservative dimension, we analyze Key Vote roll call data from the U.S. House of Representatives during the Eisenhower and Reagan administrations. The data suggest that politicians set the policy agenda in a strategic fashion. Because they consider such factors as long-term political goals, the changing institutional setting, and plebiscitary presidential politics, agenda-setters propose legislation that only imperfectly reflects their and the membership's wishes on the issue at hand. Thus, as the final stage in the political process, the strategic selection of an agenda provides a means by which factors other than policy preferences affect policy outcomes. The analyses affirm the strategic agenda as a core element in political life.