Elections Blog

In order to get elected nowadays it takes more than good morals and ideas; what really matters is who has the most money in their campaign and how much publicity they get. In terms of money, a lot is needed in order to run a successful campaign. There are signs, media coverage, public opinion polls and media consultants that need to be taken into consideration and with how technological our society has become, the more that can be spent on news publicity and commercials the better off the politician will be. The majority of the time politicians will spend millions of dollars in order to out shine their opponent. A presidential campaign is of course more expensive than that of a representative or senator. According to the text, in 2004, Kerry and Bush raised nearly $500 million in private contributions during the primary season alone. This goes to show the importance of money in campaigns.
There are many different ways to go about getting money. For example, there are organizations like Political Action Committees (PACs) who are established by corporations, labor unions or interest groups to channel the contributions of their members into political campaigns; raise money and distribute funds. This basically means that there are businesses out there that will essentially sponsor the campaign by donating as much as 5,000 dollars. Also, soft money, money contributed directly to the political parties for voter registration and organization, is used as a way to gain money. This is the safest way to get donations from legitimate donors as opposed to hard money. Hard money is money that is difficult to come by because you have to do fundraisers or just simply ask people to support your campaign. There are minute legal issues that can stem from receiving hard money because you never know where the money is coming from sometimes, which was the case for Jeff Smith in his second election. Without money it is very difficult to run a successful campaign, but second to money is media or a way to get your message across to the public.
Media in itself is important in our society because it is a way to attain information. The number one way for people to hear about the candidates running is by listening to them speak on TV or reading about them online and in the newspapers. The only problem with media is that there is a lot of bias. Media bias is when the opinions and views of those who are giving out the information are shown in the way they deliver the news, and have an influence on those receiving that news. If a news reporter is a Democrat, than it is likely that those views will come across in the way he presents or talks about the Republican candidate; and also the reporter will show favor to the party he/she associates with. Without media it is almost impossible for a candidate to be recognized as a serious contender because that is the main way for the candidate’s political ideas to be shared; they just run the risk of not being properly compared to the opponent due to bias. Another the way the media is used is slander. In an average campaign today a lot of times you won’t see what a candidate will do for the people, but what his opponent WON’T do. It is sickening sometimes to see the amount of malicious intent that is put into the commercials as a way to ruin the reputation of another candidate; especially when the money that went into that slander could be used in a more beneficial way. The way media is used today actually can make people shy away from involving themselves in the voting process. This is one of the many reasons voter turnout has gone down.
Voter turnout is the amount eligible voters who actually turnout to vote. People have become so consumed in their daily lives that they do not take the time out to follow politics, and as a result less people are represented in the outcome of the election. According to our text the majority of the voters are white employed college graduate males. This hasn’t really changed since our democracy was set up years ago. Although more groups are voting their turnout is less than that majority group. A big problem with this is that many groups do not feel represented enough, the Latinos for example. The text says that “one factor is America’s large population of immigrants who have not learned the ins and outs of democratic politics. The Latino community, for example, has not been fully integrated into American political process”. If a group does not feel equally treated or represented they are less likely to take part in the process.
In all, there are a lot of flaws when it comes to elections today that have taken away from what it really means to have a democracy. Money and media have become the forefront of elections and not so much the actual beliefs and ideals. there are groups that are under represented and people that do not feel conencted to politics therefore they do not vote. A democracy is suppsoed to be all about the people and once the people are gone there is nothing left. I believe that people should not vote if they are not properly informed and aren't 100% about their decision so it is the responsibility of both the canidates and the people. The canidates should inform and the people should take the time to be informed, that is a way a proper government should work.