When is too much information a bad thing? When the information clutters or distracts the decision making process. A good example would be being receiving an abundance of contradictory directions on how to complete a project. The American election cycle has become something similar, as the media pours information down the throats of its viewers while using the election as a way to drive interest in the news.

This process is neither good nor bad. It simply is. The political season as a horse race is the produce of living in a capitalist representative democracy. The media seeks to widen its audience by reporting on something that people are interested in. A major political campaign is a wide reaching event that carries the same type of drama as a sporting event. There is a winner and a loser. There is a tale of the tape. And there are regular scoring updates.

The scoring updates come in the form of polls. Americans favor one candidate to another due to variety of reasons including: stage presence, back story and political affiliation. Data has been collected to show that a large percentage of Americans will be persuaded to vote for a candidate enough though the vote is against their personal views and economic interest.

Part of the reason for this confusion comes down to the media coverage. The candidates are treated as if they are prize race horses. Does the candidate “look presidential”? Does he or she have executive experience? How would he or she handle the mud?

The act of observing and reporting on the race has become the race itself. It is a social Heisenberg effect, which dictates that the act of observing alters the result of the experiment. While the media implies that knowing everything about a candidate is necessary for a healthy democracy, this message is greatly self-serving.

There is no ideal way to solve the media circus surrounding politics, and in an environment where less might be more a low information diet of facts over dramatic stories could be serve voters on election day.