Why don't people just vote for who they want to vote for?

I see so many people putting emphasis on "Well this is the candidate for the party I like so this is who I'll vote for." If everyone stopped having this mentality and looked actually at who they liked instead of just which political party they were for we may actually get someone in office who knows what they are doing. I'm certain that Mitt Romney is not all Republicans first choice and Obama isn't first choice for all liberals. People need to if they have to write in candidates. If you like someone better than Romney like Ron Paul maybe he would have a better chance of winning if people actually ignored the person chosen as GOP candidate and just voted for who they liked. There are also other alternatives entirely like the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. You know, you don't always HAVE to listen to the media and you do have other choices than just 2 choices.

Most people who are conservative don't really like Mitt Romney and feel they HAVE to vote for him to stop Obama from having another term. But you don't HAVE to do anything like that. Hell you could vote for someone in the Libertarian Party or someone who is an Independent.

People who are liberal who don't like Obama that much but feel they don't want a Tea Party nutjob or a coin operated corporate tool in there have The Green Party as well as other alternatives.

More people need to stop relying on the media as to who you should vote for and if you feel someone is a crappy candidate, don't vote for them. Vote for who YOU like.

 

The media doesn't tell anyone who to vote for anymore then your neighbor does when you discuss politics. It is their job to cover who is running so how you turn that into them telling you who to vote for is just silly.

Of course commentators have opinions but so does everyone else you talk to.

 

They don't cover EVERYONE who is running. CNN will primarily push and promote Obama and Fox News will promote Romney. Neither have or plan to promote any other candidates. Most people out there don't even know who Jill Stein or Buddy Roemer are let alone that they are running for President.

 

You can vote for anyone you wish, but always remember that when voting for a candidate that hasn't a ghost of a chance to win will take your vote, but it ends up being like you never voted in one respect. This is a two party system, which I don't think is all that healthy, but it is doubtful that will change anytime soon. I feel it's like watching the same two ball teams playing against each other once a week only to also play each other in the playoff's. Boring!

 

But everyone you talk to doesn't also talk to (literally) everyone you talk to.

The media does. If it tells everybody about one candidate but doesn't tell anybody about another candidate, that drastically alters both candidates' chances. The media, in effect, chooses our candidates for us. We pick among the pool that they approve. They're like a stage of government bureaucracy, the way a bill has to get past the house and then the senate? Political candidates have to get past the media first before they ever get presented to the people for endorsement.

 

I quite agree.

 

The media exists for one purpose. To make a profit. They are not there to make sure that everyone gets equal time. Whoever is leading or in contention will get more coverage because the majority of people want to see them and not people they've never heard of.

If Ron Paul or Roseanne Barr were leading in polls you would see them front and center. More people are voting for Romney and Santorum so the media will cover them more in order to sell more of their product.

Its basic economics. You are assuming they all get together before anyone runs and decide who they will cover...this is just a conspiracy theory made up by those people such as yourself who are upset that their guy is not popular.

You blame it on everything except a poor candidate.

 

Dear god we agree on something.

8-o

 

You have it backwards. The media covers those people that Americans have put front and center, not the other way around.

You also need to address the issue of what they gain by supporting one candidate over another. Please tell me what Fox News gains by pushing Romney over some other candidate.

 

Hardly. If people wanted to elect someone who knew what they were doing, they would flip a coin at the polls (or roll a die, whatever). Non-experts voting randomly and letting experts swing the balance is the only way to get competent people out of a representative democratic system. Let me reiterate this; unless you have training in a relevant field of study, you do not know what you're doing when you vote. If you are not a political scientist or economist, you have no business trying to decide which candidate best knows what they're doing. You probably won't do a good job of it.

That's the core problem here; the vast majority of people are not expert enough in relevant fields to accurately judge the merit of the candidates. And when it comes to large national elections, even the experts are well beyond their informational limits.

 

No, I gotta disagree. I think you have it backwards. If Ron Paul were front and center in the media, I think you would see him leading in the polls. The media covers Romney and Santorum more, so more people will vote for them.

There are a very small number of people who push the media's buttons, and a huge, vast majority of people who have their buttons pushed by the media. That's just the way it is. Everyone on this forum likes to think that we aren't affected by the media, that we're wise to their wily ways, and any individual one of us might be right, but you have to admit that that most people are influenced by the media far more than they will ever influence it. Even now, in the age of the internet, we're only beginning to see a trend in the other direction, and it will take generations (at least) before the balance actually shifts.

The world should work the way you think it is, but it doesn't. Not yet. We're working on it.

 

How can that be? At what point were the American people consulted? The people go to the media for information, not the other way around.

Policies and a national paradigm more suitable to the goals of the people that own FOX.

Or, allow me to put it another way, that I think you might find more compelling: They get more or less whatever it is that you think CNN gets by pushing Obama. It helps their agenda.

 

Tell me what the media gets if they cover Romney more than Paul. Are they going to get favorable legislation or big donations? NO

They get nothing. Look at how the news works in general, they cover current popular topics that people are interested in. If you have 100 people voting for a candidate and 5 voting for a different one, why would they devote more coverage to the guy getting 5 votes. That means they will get less people to watch or sell less papers because not as many people are interested.

It is not their job to promote a candidate and they don't. They are there to sell a product to the largest amount of people they can. Their stockholders take precedence over any political agenda.

And just so you know, Ron Paul has had more media coverage in his career than all the other presidential candidates put together. If he hasn't been able to convince people of his message yet than even 24 hour a day coverage is not going to change that.

 

Their only agenda is to make a profit. It doesn't matter who gets elected to accomplish that goal.

 

Then none of us would be on this forum.

The media is no more impartial than any of the rest of us. Profit-motive definitely does not create a fair and balanced media.

 

And it just so happens that Romney having loads of money to burn on political ads, and paying that money to Fox and whatever networks who held out their hands had nothing at all to do with him getting more exposure I'm sure.

Maybe its time to get new experts then when the liberals are putting up candidates like John Kerry and Al Gore then the conservatives are putting up candidates like Bob Dole and John McCain and now Romney. These experts need to get a new job before they pick candidates that have virtually no appeal to the public. This is why I think its all a set up. If they want someone in office like George W or Obama to stay in office they will make sure the candidate with the worst possible chances to win and basically having no appeal will run against them and if that doesn't work theres always fixing an election like what happened with Bush when he did run against Gore.

The media does play a huge part in marketing who THEY feel should win. The whole "By the people for the people" is all a load of crap if information is being deliberately withheld from the American people about EVERYONE who is running for president and what all of their intentions are. Its a violation of our civil rights if we have no knowledge about our options and choices on a wide scale. Sadly in a capitalist society money talks louder than I do or even the Independent Candidates do giving an unfair advantage to the idiots.

So yes I DO every candidate SHOULD get equal advertising and notice so that we all as the public know whats out there and what to consider when we go into the voting booths.

 

I have yet to see a media outlet that didn't let us know of other candidates who were running or the issues surrounding them. Because they tend to focus on people at the front of the race is not the same as saying they aren't being fair.

There's no law mandating that they give everyone equal coverage and thank God there isn't.

 

Yeah because seeing Mitt Romney being interviewed by Chris Wallace and saying stupid things like he doesn't care about the really poor and he loves firing people isn't a complete waste of our time nor is Obama swatting flies and making empty promises. I'd much rather see a special on what other candidates have to offer rather than the same run of the mill BS they show.

 

That is exactly the kind of thinking which ensures that the two party system will continue. You should always vote for the best candidate no matter how much of a chance he's got. Its self fulfilling prophecy. If voters don't think a candidate will win (even if they like him) they won't vote for him and therefore he will not win. If they vote for him though, even if he does not win, he can look at the support he got and this will encourgae him and others like him to run again next time and hopefully put on an even better show. Its the only way to break the two party system.

I know it sounds a lot naive to some people but it works. In the short run, it will seem like a wasted vote. But it will pay dividends in the long run. Look at the case of Ron Paul objectively (even if you think he's a crackpot). No candidate like him has ever garnered much support. Paul finished last but still he got quite a few people who really like him and think the country should have someone like him to be the President. This has encouraged a lot of people with similar views to run for political positions and more and more voters are starting to believe that the two party system might not be the only alternative. Every time he has run, he has won more and more votes.

There may not be precedent for it in the US but there is a very apt example in today's politics in none other than in Pakistan. Nearly 2 decades ago he formed his party to counter the existing status quo and in the elections since then, his party won only a single seat in Parliament. For years he was a laughingstock among many as someone who would never be any sort of influential figure because he didn't have any support. A vote for him, even his most ardent fans argued, was a vote wasted. Yet, in the upcoming elections, he is generally thought to be the favourite to win and his rallies draw more support than any other candidate.

A vote is only wasted if you vote for the wrong person. If you vote for the right person, it is never wasted. If nothing, it sends a signal to the establishment that if they don't do their job properly, there are others who can and who you will vote for. If you don't do that, you yourself defeat the purpose of the elections and instead subscribe to the corrupt system yourself.

 

Those examples you gave are exactly what sells media. People want to see people screw up or get caught in lies. They don't want to sit through boring policy speeches. The mainstream media gives you plenty of information for you to research further if you like. Their main job is to sell their product which a lot of times involves the entertainment factor.

You'll notice they don't cover successful airplane flights but they sure do cover the crashes. Same thing with politics. They cover what most people want to see.

 

Regardless of it being boring or not or your point that drama seems to sell it has nothing IMO to do with how competant someone will be to lead this country. I mean Jersey Shore is popular also and people love it but I would never want any of those clowns running the country.

 

The media's job is not to determine competence and they certainly don't try. That is up to the individual to figure out for themselves. Because many people follow what they see in the news is not the media's fault.

Its the people's fault for being stupid.

 

Not everyone is going to go online or go and hunt around to do research. I only know of candidates like Buddy Roemer and Jill Stein because I care enough about this country to do the research on everyone so I can put thought into who I'm voting for and making my decision based on my own ideals and what is important to me and who I feel can best help this country. Though not everyone is like me and would like the information given to them on a silver platter. They may say "Well I don't really like either candidate but I'll vote for this one because he seems like the lesser of two evils." Most people seem convinced they only have two real choices because they don't know otherwise.

 

Yes and that is their fault. It is unfair to blame the media for this. That valuable air-time they use describing these other candidates from other parties is money lost in revenue from ads because people will probably flip the channel.

The fact that people do not care enough about obscure presidential candidates to even look at their names shows that it is not a newsworthy event.

 

I agree with you that its their fault. Knowledge is the best tool the American people have in making this country a better one and I think its sad more people don't seek out every possible bit of knowledge before voting and making a decision. Most people already don't care and are flipping the channel. Some don't even plan to vote. They would rather vote for who is going to be American Idol than who is going to be president. If people stopped wanting to be entertained and started wanting this country to be in good shape, we wouldn't have half the problems that we do.