For a democracy to function, each group participating in the process must ensure that the people within its group observe and play by the rules, he stressed. Out of concern for that problem, the United States Congress, he noted, created the Federal Election Commission in 1975 to enforce a series of laws enacted to limit the amount of money that can be contributed to candidates running for office. For that reason, he added, public scrutiny is an important part of the effort to keep the process as fair as possible. Asked why U.S. election campaigns are so expensive, Kimberling said that massive amounts of money are used to buy access time in the media, to put a candidate's message out to the electorate. We don't have rallies anymore.
People have jobs.
They have a routine. American media companies are privately owned and operated in the United States, he reminded his audience, and thus candidates must compete against commercial buyers for advertising time if their commercial advertisements or campaign messages are to air. Asked if American candidates use money to buy votes, Kimberling said that that is illegal and seldom the case. We have an entire battery of laws that prevent the use of money for buying votes. The role of the media is really more important for politicians who are not yet well known, because many people begin to formulate their ideas about politicians by what they see on television, when they are just shaping their opinions.