Getting Elected in the United States

In today's society, I think that it is democratic but there are a lot of different things that influence people to vote one way or another- many of which are unfair to canidates with less money or political power. Money is a major influence in politics, because politicians are able to sway voters one way or another with ads and campaigns. All of the things that politicians do to promote themselves cost money and whether it is soft money, or hard money, it is still unfair. Because individuals cannot donate more than a certain amount to a specific canidate, they donate money to a support the programs or projects a canidate supports. This is called soft money, and it is less regulated than the hard money usually donated to a canidate. PAC's, or Political Action Committees, are what allows people to donate soft money to a canidate. Because these organizations do not support the specific canidate, but rather the beliefs he or she supports, they are allowed to donate as much money as they want to the canidate's cause. Oftentimes, the media influences voters to vote one way or another because they are biased. Whether the reporter means to or not, they sometimes allow their personal opinions to affect the story. As we saw in the video in class, reporters are not always allowed to be there when the news is happening, so they rely on other reporters to tell them what happened. This sometimes causes news to get twisted, as facts often do when they are transferred through various people. Another reason that voting today may be less democratic is low voter turnout. I think that everyone should come out to vote, because it is their right as an American and they should be proud of it. However, the government cannot force people to vote, because this would lead to people voting just for the sake of voting. If too many people vote randomly because they are not educated on the canidates, the people who actually have strong opinions will not be heard.
The two political parties, republicans and democrates, both have very different opinions. Republicans generally want the government to be less involved in people's lives, and the democrates tend to believe that the government should help people who need it. To me, democrates lean toward the socialist side of things, because they think that the government should be allowed to use money to help those who are not as well off. Although these parties have very different beliefs, they both use the same techniques to get elected. Hopefully, money does not influence voters to the point where they vote for the candidate based on what they see on tv- although I am sure this happens. I think that in order to have a truely fair election, people must be educated on the candidates and think for themselves rather than listen to what others say. However, this would be almost impossible because money is always an influence and the campaign would be impossible without it.