Essay/Term paper: Reason why elections are less democratic

Essay, term paper, research paper:  History Essays

Reason Why Elections Are Less Democratic


The reason why elections are less democratic is because some people say that
money is taking away from our well known democracy, but in other instances we
have the greatest democracy compared to other countries of our vast magnitude.

Throughout the nineteenth century campaigns were ran and geared toward the party.
Instead of voting for a person you were voting for an individual party either
federalist or democratic-republican. Today, in the twentieth century, we vote
for the candidate and their true character or what they have to offer us. To
run a successful campaign now-a-days you need money, a good pollster, well
organized debate, direct mail, and positive publicity.

"Money is the mother's milk of politics" if you don't have you aren't going to
go any where. Campaign money is received part from federal and part from
private donors in a presidential election, but congressional elections are all
private donors. Most of the money for a congressional leader comes from
individual donors, but they also have political action committees (interest
groups) that raise money for their campaign. Presidential candidates also raise
money from individual donors because the federal government will match them
dollar for dollar. Reform has been successful in the fact that it minimizes
some fat cat buying his or her own pet politician, but it also takes away from
the parties, provides an advantage to wealthy challengers, gives advantages to
candidates with high ideological appeal, penalizes those who start late in the
campaign, and helps incumbents and hurts challengers.

The Democratic Party has more registered voters so logically the democrats
should win. The reasons why they don't always win is because those who are
democrats are not firmly stuck with their party like republicans are,
republicans also do better with the independent voters, and more republicans
actually come out and vote than democrats.

Realigning elections are also known as critical elections. It happens when a
major party suffers such a defeat (because of a major issue that comes about and
separates the party) that it disappears or it is the shifting of voters between
major parties. There has been three major realigning elections: 1860, 1896,
and 1932. In 1860 it was the slavery issue, in 1896 it dealt with economic
issues, and in 1932 it occurred because of an economic depression. Some people
say we are getting ready to have one because of the effects of the New Deal, but
others say it won't happen again because party labels have lost their meaning.

For any given party to win an election you must retain your old voters, but
always gain new ones. The people usually targeted are young voters coming of
age, immigrants becoming citizens, and blacks that are now eligible to vote.

Policy is rarely effected by an election in our government compared to other
countries such as Britain. The reason why is that there are so many offices to
be filled that it is to hard for everyone to be united under one policy. In
1860 a party came to power that was opposed to slavery, in 1980 a party came to
power that reversed the direction of policy in the last half-century, and party
platforms either pass laws through the House of Reps. or in the Senate.