Election Test Post

I feel that in today’s political environment you need to be more than just the best candidate and the hardest working. Also, I feel that as a society we can be too easily swayed by media bias and if a news source does not want to cover a certain politician it can do that because of the power it has to control the news. Media bias is the bias of news reporters and producers selecting which news stories are going to be presented and how they are presented. The media plays a large part in helping citizens chose who they are going to vote for so they can use their power to help the candidate that they like and that candidate might not always be the best. This limits certain people in elections because it will stop them from reaching a larger audience. Another limiting factor in getting elected is campaign funds. One type of funding is called ‘hard money’ which is campaign funds directly donated to the candidate and is limited in the amount of money that can be given. ‘Soft money’ is money that is contributed to the political party, a political organization with common interests seeking to keep control of the government, and not to a specific candidate. This type of donation is used to help build the party. If a candidate is not well known and is not really known to the voters it funding is going to be hard to come by. They do not stand a chance against big names that have sources of campaign funds and can afford to a big budget. The candidate with little funds will have to work hard just to get his name out there to start bringing in money for the campaign. Political action committees also help to fund candidates. These committees are private groups that hold specific interests and will donate money to the candidate that they believe will help them in their fight and interest. These groups can now even sway the opinions of the candidates because they can use this power of money to change the goals of the candidates. This need for money to be elected really changes how an election is ran because a candidate is going to need a lot of money to win. After all this campaigning where money and the media play their role it is now up to the people to vote. Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who end up voting. This can be very important in state and local elections because these are separated by not that many votes. A person who is voting just to vote will usually vote for the person the media is choosing and this again is how the media uses its power. Voter turnout can also be a negative thing because the people who care and know the issues will always vote but of someone is voting just to vote and do not know anything they can be hurting the cause. I feel that in today’s political environment a candidate needs a lot of campaign voting and the backing of the media to even stand a chance in the election. That is just how it works in today’s society and it takes away from the democratic process of it.