Recently, the Federal Communications Commission has been working to level the playing field. The FCC hopes to ensure free television air time for candidates. Free air time would promote equality in political campaigns and more accurately inform voters. Ideally television should be a place where the people are able to participate in an open forum and political candidates are able to interact with the public they are campaigning to represent. This sounds good until one remembers that air time costs money.
Costs associated with campaign advertising quickly reach astronomical levels.
Unfortunately, this creates an imbalance in the democratic system. Presently it favors politicians with access to more funds. This creates a rift between the two major parties and smaller third parties. Republicans and Democrats, who have large bases of support, are able to draw from many resources for advertising money. On the other hand, smaller parties either have to find independently wealthy candidates or settle for smaller advertising campaigns which reach less of the public and therefore remove any legitimate chance of their winning an election.