The Election

Learning the process of an election while our election was happening was one of my favorite moments of the year. The image of a presidential candidate was, as we were learning, was someone who could effectively side with a political party and represent his party through the success of his political past. The crude reality of the matter was that one had a sketchy past and husband, while the other had no political experience, along with a colorful record as being anything but presidential. Learning about all of the aspects of a presidential election was best taught by the candidates themselves, as there never was a dull moment with any of them. Concepts such as horserace journalism, agenda setting and swing states were vividly presented by the candidates. 

Seeing them debate and talk about their stances influenced everyone in the country to form their opinions, even though the country traditionally has low voter turn-out rates. An election that was so politically evoking broke the norm of citizens being generally uninterested in elections, as I felt as the more we learned about the tactics used by presidential candidates, the more those rules were broken, providing the reasons as to why they were there in the first place.