Support for Romney and His Money

In April president Obama Raised 43.6 million dollars for his campaign, which vastly out numbers the amount Romney raised for his campaign. One thing Romney did receive the former president’s approval and has endorsed which will change the way this election goes.

In our Government Class we’ve discussed the importance money in how successful someone is in the elections. Obama has superior amounts of money compared to Romney, but he may be gaining a surplus of money due to the endorsement by Bush.

Currently Obama is leading the race to the presidency by a large margin. Both George Bush and his wife Barbra currently support Romney. The more support he has from larger political face, the more he may be able to raise for his campaign. The more money he has the greater chance he has for beating out Obama and take over the presidency. It is said that if Romney could do so, he would be the richest man ever to live in the White House.

Being a reelection year for Obama, many will say that he can’t be beaten. Money is actually one of, if not the most, important factor in determining who will turn out successful. As of now Mitt Romney has raised a total of $86,631,381, in comparison to Obama who has raised a total of $191,671,860. Obama has not only doubled Romney’s number, but is also close to doubling his predicted vote.

With the help of Bush’s support, Romney could possibly sway all the swing voters and influence them that he is an accountable candidate. With the support of Bush’s followers he will have a greater opportunity to raise more money, giving him more of a shot of defeating Barack Obama, and become closer to him in his total earnings. With more money to spend he will have more advertisement options with more efficient techniques that will hopefully sway the undecided voters towards him if he would like to be president.

Campaigning: A Race to See Who Is…. Not the Worst?

As we wrap up the year in our government class, we aim to apply the things we have learned to real life situations. One topic we studied as campaigning and campaign strategies. One could look at Reagan, Bush, JFK, or any of our former presidents for that matter, and he or she could see the use of campaign ads or anything to push his campaign over another’s. The presidential elections are getting nearer and nearer which means that more and more campaign ads and other pushes to get a vote are being used. Recently, President Obama released a short clip

slamming Mitt Romney in regard to job losses in the past and Romney’s “plan” for the future. As I talked about (as well as many others) in my last blog post, media has a tremendous effect on the presidential race today because of how many people see it. This ad portrays a dark and solemn tone to represent a not-so-bright future under Romney. Because of what we have studied in our class time, I now have a more solid viewpoint on what this ad really means and what it actually does in regard to President Obama’s campaign. Honestly, if I was to be watching TV in the past and this clip came on, I probably would have done one of two things: either change the channel or just zone out completely for a little bit until it was over. Now, I can actually watch it, know what they’re talking about, and form my own opinion about it, which in this case, I see that President Obama is right when criticizing Romney.

Because of the influence that politicians have on voters, they can say so many things about themselves or other candidates to get people to vote for them.

Moreover, back to the campaign ad and its relevance, this isn’t all that the President, or Mitt Romney even, have done to criticize one another. President Obama has ads like the one about steel workers above, as well as videos like “When Mitt Romney Came To Town”, while at the same time, Crossroads Generation, an organization that supports Mitt Romney, recently released a video criticizing President Obama and the issue of student debt. Things are getting heated. Debate is starting. Every four years, this point in time is reached where it turns into a free-for-all and the candidates throw jabs and sometimes uppercuts at each other. This is that point in time. With all the possible ways to get under candidates’ skin and blast them, it turns into a criticism-fest. As if the campaign ads weren’t enough, the Obama administration made a website solely to poke at Romney in relation to his responsibility for job losses. All of these forms of campaigning are used to cause mass flow of information to voters so that they have everything at their disposure. All of this can be linked to Richard Neustadt’s claim of presidential persuasion. A president must persuade those in his cabinet, but that is once he is in office. A presidential candidate and his or her administration must not only dig up information on other candidates that would shoot him or her down, but they must also be able to persuade their audience in order to get their votes.

Presidential elections have and always will be about who can make the other look the worst. It will always be about who can say “Look at me. I’m not going to give you everything, but I’m sure as heck better than that guy”, and then have everyone that hears him believe it. This is the epitome of campaigning and its effect on the voters. It’s giving voters the opportunity to form an opinion, just like I have learned to be able to do by taking this class.

Who can get More Dirt on Who?

This year in government we have studied election and how people campaign.  Campaign videos have become a big thing that can help a candidate gain votes.  Earlier this year we did an activity where we had to watch campaign videos and identify the tone, argument, and emotional appeal.  Through watching these videos I realized that videos can have a big impact on a campaign and how the voter feels.  These videos added insight to how a video can greatly affect a voter.  For example the “Prouder, Stronger, Better” add by Ronald Reagan was a great video because it made you feel like he made America great and after that video I found myself thinking I would have voted for him if i was alive then. The video below shows what a great campaign video looks like and why great videos can change thoughts about someone.    

After studying these videos I realized that they have a great impact on what people think about that person as a candidate.  While the video above is a great video and shows so many reasons why Ronald Reagan would be a great president not all videos today follow that path.  Today the elections and campaigning is all about who can dig up more dirt on who and make the other candidate look bad to the public. It has almost become something of which people want to make there appearance better to the public than their opposition.  The fact is that politics has become dirty and been made into something that it wasn’t in the past.  When one starts to run for office it is almost as if he must know that sometime during his campaign his opposition will or will try to bring out something dirt about him and try to hurt his campaign.

An example that has just come out recently is how President Obama released a six minute video on the internet talking about all the bad things the Mitt Romney has done in his business days.  There is also a shorter television version of the video that will be showed in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Iowa, and Colorado all of which are considered swing states.    This video was released to try to sway votes toward Obama by making Romney look bad in the process.  In this video it is talked about how Romney costed many people their jobs for his own personal gain but what they leave out it Mitt Romney’s side of the story.  Mitt Romney states that he was not in charge of this because he was in charge of the Olympic Committee.  This video is a clear stab at Mitt Romney trying to gain more votes for Obama.  This is a dirt way to gain votes and in my opinion does not reflect well upon Obama.

This video is discussed in an article in USA Today where they talked about how it was a dirty video from Obama.  While I agree that this video is very dirty and wasn’t needed I will say that I know that both sides in campaigns play dirty.  Mitt Romney is probably guilty of some dirty advertising as well but in my opinion I think that both sides should cut it out.  No one likes people who play dirty and so I personally think that people should play fair and cut out all of this “Dirty play”.  What we need is everyone to go back to to advertising like Ronald Reagan.  His video “Prouder, Stronger, Better” was a great example of how to campaign and people need to model after that from now on.

Santorum’s Campaign

Since we began studying government, and especially elections, I have found myself paying closer attention to the news than I had in years past. This November I will be voting for the first time, so I feel that the campaigns are both more important and more interesting to follow. We’ve talked about election, campaigns, and political parties, and that has greatly increased my understanding of the former Republican Senator Rick Santorum’s political choices with regards to how he campaigned and why he finally dropped out of the race.

Every candidate starts out in their own way with different advantages and disadvantages from their opponents. Santorum began the race with little money and with little recognition. In order to work around this he started his campaign early in Iowa, meeting with people of influence in every one of the districts. In doing so he eventually earned the attention of major news networks. He did not win the Iowa caucus, but it was still a victory for his team. Later on he beat Romney, his main competition, in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado. Despite these wins, Santorum was never real competition for Romney. No matter how hard Santorum campaigned it was clear that he could never be able to secure the Republican nomination.

From the beginning, one of the key reasons Santorum was at a disadvantage was because he lacked strong financial supporters. In the 2008 elections for example, the republican candidate, John McCain, raised 351 million dollars. (Choices 140) To try to make up for his lack of necessary funds, he put in more face time with real voters than any other candidate. Unfortunately for him however, this could never be enough to win over the nation.

After seeing how Santorum fared, I first wondered why he did not run as a third party candidate. Although he had Republican beliefs, if he ran as an Independent he would be able to spend time trying to win over America rather than trying to beat Romney. By the time the November elections came around he might have enough recognition to face Romney and Obama. Our studies of government made why he chose to run as a Republican candidate despite his shortcomings abundantly clear.

Elections in America were set up to be a two party ordeal. Many states partake in a winner takes all mentality where there is no reward for putting up a good fight or coming in second. All that matters is the one candidate who won the majority. This system is responsible for why parties can come and go, but there are always two that will dominate the minority groups. It is set up this way in part because if there were more parties then elections would become increasingly confusing and more and more people would be dissatisfied with the president, as they were not the ones to elect him to office.

Despite all of his campaigning and all of the time he dedicated to his race, on April 10th Santorum announced the suspension of his campaign. “The [announcement] solidifies what already essentially had become a two-man fight for the presidency in November.” Though the reasons behind it were more than simply political, Santorum realized that at this point in his family’s life he could not devote so much of his time and resources to a futile race. Despite his suspension, Santorum said”we are not done fighting,” which seemed to refer more to the health of his daughter rather than his campaign. Read more about his announcement.

The unit on elections taught me that being elected to an office of any kind takes more than trying to be a likeable candidate or trying to relate to voters. To be successful, a candidate needs a team backing him that is able to bring in massive amounts of capitol as well as secure the nomination for one of the two major parties. Without these, a candidate, in this case Rick Santorum, will never be able to succeed in his goal of President.

How Far Will They Go?: Manipulation in the 2012 Election

http://ryking.tumblr.com/page/4

Studying campaign commercials this trimester really peaked my interest.  In a world where technology rules, media is extremely important.  For an election, media is even more important because it can make a candidate look great or make their supporters doubt whether they still intend on being a supporter.  Campaign commercials and other types of media have always been crucial within the election, but in recent years, since technology has become more relevant, these commercials have gained so much power that they could potentially make or break a candidate’s career. In the 2012 election, vital candidates such as Obama, Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich have used the power in the media to bring themselves up while tearing their opponents down.  This, in theory, seems be fine, it’s a competition after all, but the way that some candidates do this is by manipulation.  Candidates can manipulate in many ways, but, ultimately, there are two ways of manipulating in the media: twisting around and placing opponents’ words into different context and omission.

The first way of manipulation in the media is twisting around the words of opponents and placing them into different context.  Basically, candidates will take a piece of what an opponent said and use it to their advantage.  An example of this is Mitt Romney twisting around the words of Barack Obama saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose”.  Romney is attempting to manipulate the citizens of New Hampshire by saying that Obama was “trying to distract us from what matters” (http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/mitt-romney-ad-twists-obama-s-words-works/231147/).  Later, it was discovered that Obama was actually quoting John McCain.  Romney took this quote completely out of context because the actual quote by Obama was, “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose’”.  The problem with this, besides the obvious twisting of words, is that the public is not going to go look back on each quote by each candidate, they are just going to hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe.  Romney’s manipulation here may have actually played a part in helping him become the front-runner of the Republican Party.

http://www.columbian.com/news/2012/feb/12/mitt-cant-bridge-the-gaffe/

An example of omitting the complete truth is Rick Santorum’s campaign commercial that seems to be about Obama and his faults but ends up being about Romney and his.  The narrator says that Romney’s “big government-mandating health care included $50 abortions”.  This is referring to the state health care law signed by Romney.  It said nothing about abortion when he signed it.  Later the Commonwealth Connector was forced, by a Supreme Court ruling in 1981 that “women eligible for Medicaid had a state constitutional right to payments for medically necessary abortions” (http://factcheck.org/2012/04/deja-vu-the-latest-attacks-from-santorum/).  Again in 1997, the state high court ruled that Massachusetts “must cover medically necessary abortions if it covers other medically necessary care, such as childbirth”.  Later, the ad claims that Romney “supported radical environmental job-killing cap and trade”.  Many years ago, when Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he had the idea of a regional cap-and-trade system for the Northeast, but then decided to drop the idea completely.  Romney clears up the situation by saying that he does not believe in the cap-and-trade program, that it doesn’t make sense for Americans to “spend trillions of dollars to somehow stop global warming”.  He said that Americans will lose jobs and that it just wouldn’t be successful because “energy intensive” industries will “just get up and go somewhere else”.  But, again, this manipulation in the media completely threw everyone into frenzy, causing them to look away from one candidate and into the dirty little secrets of others.

The easy-access to media has completely changed all presidential campaigns.  Because of this easy-access, candidates have been forced to take media and tend it to their needs.  Candidates have been forced to use the media in any and all ways that help their campaign.  To do this, some candidates turn to the positives aspects of themselves, but, more often than not, candidates use the media to show a negative side to their opponents, and when there isn’t a negative side, or they cant find it; they will turn to lying as a way to make sure that there is a negative aspect.  They know it will be seen as negative because they, basically, created it themselves by molding it and warping the truth to look and sound the way that they want it to.

Wondering how much of what you hear is true? Check out factcheck.org!