The film, “Can Mr. Smith get to Washington anymore?” questions the process in which Americans vote and elect their political leaders. Jeff Smith was your typical American. However, his immense passion for politics sparked a crazy idea. The 29-year old part time political science instructor decided to run for congress. With no money, no political base, and no name recognition, Smith’s friends and family doubted him. However, he refused to give up and proved everyone wrong when Smith’s campaign rose to the top challenging State Representative Russ Carnahan. Carnahan has Fundraising connections, name recognition and a powerful history; but unlike Smith, he lacks public performances, passion for his job, and his campaign is uninspired. It was …show more content…
In a democracy, like the United States, Americans choose government officials. The elected officials then serve for a term of office. The prevalence of single-member district is one of the most important of the features of the electoral system. Almost all elections held are a single-member election, which means they are contest in which only one candidate is elected to each office on the ballot. The winner of the election is the one who received the largest number of votes, or plurality. This pattern however, works to discourage minor and non-major parties. Republicans and Democrats usually find common ground and work together, also known as bipartisan. It seems that the electoral process shape election laws to preserve, protect, and defend the two-party system; furthermore, not giving the minor party a fair …show more content…
The electoral process is the method by which a candidate is elected to office. In the United States the people have the power to elect who they believe is the right candidate. However, are people using that power efficiently? Is the electoral process really democratic? The film helped me understand the electoral process. Americans don’t choose the best candidate; they choose the most “known” candidate, or the one that seems to be the best candidate, even when they are not. It is obvious that Americans are not all that educated when it comes to choosing who they believe is the right candidate. In the film, it seemed that Smith’s hard work in creating a “grassroots” campaign was going to pay off. It seemed that the electoral process might be a little different this time around. However, this was proved wrong when Carnahan won and “The St. Louis American,” the African-American newspaper, wrote that Carnahan was the most prudent choice, even though Smith has fought for racial justice most of his life. Throughout the film, people tell Smith that they admire and like his platform best but won’t vote for him because Carnahan is the one who is going to win. Americans vote and line up behind a candidate who has no idea what their issues are or how to fix and fight for their issues for the single reason that they think that candidate is most likely to win. Despite the fact that the film clearly
If he can win and can’t do the party any good, who needs him? If he can win and can do the party harm, who wants him? (96). While Rakove’s stance on the political machine’s simplistic nature is important.
Billy Long would defeat Jim Evans, his Democratic opponent with again approximately 63% of the votes. However this time, the 63% of the voting translated to 203,565. This speaks of the voter turnout in this district. Representative Long
Helms painted Gantt as a radical on race issues, which proved to be affective in defeating Gantt. On the issue of race, Helms did not try to mask his discriminatory views, instead, he capitalized on it because he knew that many others in North Carolina supported his views. While many saw Helms as disillusioned or out of touch with today’s society, I view him as an individual who knew the true nature of North Carolina and did everything in his power to expose it. Helms proved to be a master at political strategy making him one of
The year a new president must be chosen is always a time of tension in the United States. Hopeful candidates run for president, and citizens start swearing their allegiance to a candidate and party. The GOP and DNC start grooming the candidates they wish to have as president while independent candidates are just trying to get their names in the news. One of the topics that is always criticized and defended around the time of the presidential elections is always the Electoral College. One side say it is undemocratic and unfair, and the other side says that it is a pillar of the United States government.
Smith institutes very indignant and zealous diction when challenging the Democratic Administration on their lack of quality leadership in the past and present day, and also when challenging her own political group to not follow in the hypocrisy. Her word choice when describing the Democratic Administration includes, “a mania for loose spending and loose programs,”, “rapidly losing,”, “confused,”, “contradictory,”, “greatly lost”, “complacency to,”, “suffer”, and “ineffective”. All of these in context, Smith implements to discredit the Democratic Regime because of their overall failure to properly take care of their country and its people. Smith appeals to pathos through her diction, in how it galvanized guilt and humiliation in the Senators
In the constitutional convention of 1787, our nation's founding fathers came together to come up with a method to elect a president at a time when the majority of Americans couldn’t make an educated decision when voting so Electors who trusted with the responsibility to represent their state and make an informed choice. Our founding fathers came up with an indirect method, the Electoral College, which proved successful by allowing Americans to choose their state representatives and senators who would represent their vote and through a majority choose a president-elect. Through the electoral college, each state gets two senators and a varied number of state representatives depending on the population of their state that the people vote for themselves
The existence of the Electoral College has remained a source of debate for the population of the United States for centuries. Despite the evident discontent surrounding it, the United States is largely unaware of the disconnect between citizens’ voices and the Presidency. It can be said that popular sovereignty, no matter how pleasant a concept, has become little more than an illusion the people cling to. In short, the Electoral College is an institution that must be abolished, because it violates political equality, is unfair to third party candidates, and is not an accurate representation of the people’s votes.
The Votes that Should Count The United States should abolish the Electoral College, by amending the Constitution, and use the Direct Popular Vote process for presidential elections. Though the U.S. Constitution Article two, section one, clause two states that the appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states (National Conference of State Legislator), it is seemingly pointless to carry out national voting polls of the public if only electoral college votes will hold the count for the next elected president. Every three years around the United States, candidates who decide to run for the seat of presidency begin their campaign to win the votes of Americans, but for what?
Colin received 49% of the vote, falling by a few thousand votes. Colin received the highest percentage and highest vote total for a Republican challenger in Delaware in almost a quarter century. (He even received 24,000 more votes than the winning candidate in 2014). Impressive results especially considering the difficult context of the Republican “top of the ticket” in Delaware in 2010 (Delaware was the only State which elected new Democrat US Senate and Democrat Congressional candidates in 2010). Colin out-performed the Republican ticket dramatically and energized the electorate up and down Delaware with his dynamic grass-roots
The Electoral College system, in our government today, is made up of a winner-take-all system. The winner take all system demonstrates that whichever candidate that receives the most votes wins all of the electoral points and the other candidate receives nothing. The Electoral College system enacts the candidates of both parties to only visit the larger states, in which they know they will most likely receive the most electoral points. This is not technically fair because each state is not getting proper representation. When states disagree, with one candidate’s views on a particular issue, they can swing and vote for the other candidate causing the other candidate to alter their approach to win back the state.
He smears his opponent’s campaign, however, making him sound less like the honest man he tries to portray and more like a grumpy, old man who has numerous sly comments about the other team. Peterson creates a
In the movie “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” Jeff Smith has been elected for senator after one of his state’s two Senators dies. His journey to figure out the ropes of being a congressman is troublesome yet successful. He gains the mentorship of Senator Paine even though Paine isn’t as noble as his reputation would state. Senator Paine becomes involved in a plan to disgrace Smith. Committed to standing up against Paine, Smith takes the case for a boys campsite to the Senate floor.
Films are a great way of communicating a message to the viewers. One of the most controversial topics conveyed is politics and for this reason, Mr Smith Goes to Washington is a movie that explores the American political system through the life of Senator Jefferson Smith a newly elected politician. He comes out as a radical after realising that he cannot serve the interest of those who elected him to the government. The director of the film explores a radical sense ideological spectrum through a character who maintains integrity in the midst of harsh criticism in the political system. The director is radical trying to anger the political class and then win acclaim from the public.
Republicans vs. Democrats When the United States of America was founded, George Washington warned against the formation of political parties. By the time the second election came around there were already two political parties, the Federalist and Democratic-Republicans. These parties eventually turned into the Republican and Democratic parties we have today. While these parties have shifted to become almost polar opposites politically, they still share some common goals.
A democracy is a system of government that gives the people the power to govern. This can either be done directly, where citizens actively participate in the decision making of the country, or indirectly through elected representatives. The purpose of the democratic process is to protect the interests of all citizens of a country. In order to do so, every citizen in the country needs a medium through which to express his political opinion to defend his interests. This is the role of political parties.