The Presidential Campaign
Presidential campaigns begin after the
parties officially nominate their presidential candidate in their
conventions. In order to carry out an effective campaign, a candidate
must be supported by campaign managers, media consultants (experts
who advise the candidate how to use television, newspapers and radio
to express his message), public opinion pollsters (experts who carry
out surveys about what people think of the candidate), speechwriters,
etc. Because a well-organized campaign gives the candidate a better
chance of success, campaign plans are made long before the actual
campaign starts. The two major parties (Republican and Democratic)
usually have different ways of carrying out their campaigns. For example,
Democratic candidates often focus on getting more people to vote.
The Republicans, on the other hand, try to get the votes of Democrats
and independents by asking people to “vote for the candidate,
not the party,” especially when it seems that the Republican
candidate has ideas that the majority of people might like.
The campaign of presidential candidates
has become very expensive in recent years. In the past, presidential
candidates received the financial support of a small number of wealthy
contributors. As a result, rich individuals who gave large amounts
of money to a candidate were able to influence public policies when
the candidate became president. To deal with this problem, Congress
introduced the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (amended in 1974).
This campaign financing law put a limit to private contributions and
made government money available to candidates. The problem of large
private donations (financial support), however, still exists. Although
the 1971 law has limited what is known as hard money (private contributions
directly to the candidates), soft money (private contributions to
the parties) is still unlimited. Private groups and wealthy individuals
do still give a lot of money to the party of their choice, which the
party later uses to indirectly support the campaigns of its candidates.
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