Elections Test Question

If one is attempting to get elected in a political campaign, the most important characteristic that the candidate must put on display for the public is their image. Even if someone is not necessarily the most fitting of candidates, if they have a positive, progressive image then they are the ones that are going to be attracting the voters to their campaign. One aspect that will really help a candidate out in portraying this image is directly related to the amount of funding that they receive. In a campaign, they are numerous ways to raise money and some comes from Political Action Committees, which are directly connected to specific corporations, labor groups, and recognized political parties. All of these donated funds will either be categorized as hard or soft money. The hard money is from political donations that are regulated by law through the federal election commission, and is contributed directly to a candidate of a political party. While soft money is money contributed to the political party as a whole. It is money donated to political parties in a way that leaves contributors unregulated. All of these funds will go to the candidate’s campaign and they will use all of their money to try and promote themselves and attempt to improve the way that they are perceived by the public. That seems to be the prime goal for most of the people running for their respective political party, which is a political organization that typically seeks to attain and maintain political power within government. The reason that these candidates strive to get their name out there and have people be so familiar with their name is because that is what is going to get them into office realistically. As sad as it is, we are simply uninformed as a nation on these political issues that these candidates talk about. And a positive image will influence the voters and maybe even help improve that voter turnout in their favor if they have the support of the people. The voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast their opinions on a ballot at the elections. Typically the turnout in our country is low because the people believe that their vote won’t matter. But the problem is that there are thousands of others who walk around with this same mentality and if they all just went and voted, it would have a big impact on the outcome. Another reason why the voters just don’t seem to be there is because people are uneducated. Those who attempt educate themselves by watching the news are subject to some sort of media bias, which refers to the bias of journalists and news producers within the media, in the selection of which events and stories are reported and how they are covered. All of the bias put out there by these news stations, all stems back to this image that the candidates aim so hard to keep positive. A candidate can not necessarily promote himself in a positive way if he does not have the funds to do so. So getting back to the core question of whether these elections are democratic or not, I do not believe that they are simply because of the fact that the best candidate is not always getting chosen, the candidate that promotes himself in the most positive manner is usually the one that comes out on top.