Elections

Candidates running for any position know how hard it is to appeal to a diverse populas. They must capture the attention of citizens through advertisement and speeches expressing their true opinions. The election cycle is the primary and general elections. In primary elections Democrats and Republicans from the POLITICAL PARTIES run against each other to see who moves on to run against the opposite party in the general election. To win an election, one must consider the people who are voting. Appealing to the people and having similiar ideologies as them would be beneficial in a race because people want to choose who they think will do the best with the country. This leads into VOTER TURNOUT, which is the number of people who actually took time to vote and voice their opinion. This is important because demographically speaking, some candidates will have more followers less likely to vote because of certain reasons. This could work either way, for example, Fox News did a segment where they had a reporter ask several African-Americans about Sarah Palin running with Obama. This was obviously a false fact but most of the individuals asked were oblivious to the fact that they were not running together, even though they were willing to support Obama because of race. MEDIA BIAS is in every news station, this is how public politics work. One station takes an either conservative or liberal view on a topic and skews it as much as possible without blatantly lying. In days of technology, the easiest way to get your supporter's attention is to advertise through television and computer ads. To fund these expenses candidates obtain either HARD or SOFT MONEY through donations or POLITICAL ACTION COMMITEES. Soft money is money donated to political parties in a way that leaves the contribution unregulated. this means the candidate can spend the money on basically whatever the like. Hard money is money given directly to the candidate and is regulated by the Federal Election Commission. This money is often obtained through loopholes in the law.

Low turnout, I believe, is a bad thing because there is lack of opinion and diversity. If not all of the citizens voted, how can there be a truly fair race? I think to keep the "melting pot" icon inscribed in American history, everyones opinion must be voiced.

Freedom vs. Protection is a topic with alot of gray area. As our activity in class revealed, many Americans believe that freedom is more important than protection. Also, many people believed that without protection there would be no point for freedoms. If everyone was free to do whatever they wanted there would be utter chaos and our lives would be less advanced. Therefore, government rises out of need for protection. In exchange for some rights, government ensures that we are safe to live our lives to what they see as the fullest. I believe that the most important amendment is the 1st amendment because it entitles citizens to express their true opinions. This means that religion, assembly, petition, press, and speech are all protected. I think it is interesting that in the case of SantaFe vs. Doe in 1965, students wanted to say a prayer at a school function, but not during school hours. they thought it would be okay since it was not during class time but the court ruled it unconstitutional and said that you cannot encourage students to pray on school grounds. This is a perfect example of freedom vs. protection because the government is stopping certain people from practicing their religion in order to protect people that were offended by it. There is also the 4th amendment which protects people and lets them keep their privacy. It says that you cannot be searched legally without a warrant. In the case of California vs. Greenwood, Billy Greenwood was being watched by the police because they suspected that he was selling narcotics. They seacrhed his trashbags on the side of the road and found drug paraphernalia that allowed them to apply for a warrant to search the house. Since they did not have a warrant, was it illegal to search the trashbags? Supreme court said it was legal because the trashbags were ruled public domain and the evidence was admissable. The last but not least important is the 6th amendment, it guarantees an attornney when you are arrested. In the case of Gideon vs. Wainright , Gideon was arrested for robbery and put in jail. He demanded an attorney be appointed but was denied. He then claimed that it was unconstitutional that he was not appointed an attorney since he could not afford one. He was granted another trial with a council to support him and the jury acquitted him. There are many laws allowing freedoms, but there are alos laws protecting the population. For these laws to not contradict each other, there must be a perfect balance of both.

Chazz Hutchings

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