How cor­rupt the can­di­date is per­ceived. That is, how will the can­di­date is seems to be will­ing to trade votes for mon­ey. Lob­by­ists don't care about this (they tend to the cul­prits here) but nearly every­one else does. Can­di­dates gain cor­rup­tion by accept­ing bribes or fol­low­ing a high fund­ing lob­by­ist groups poli­cies to close­ly.

How con­sis­tent the can­di­date is per­ceived to be on the issues. If a can­di­date appears to 'flip-flop' a lot, it will lower the pub­lic's per­cep­tion of him. Also, for a 'flip-flop­ping' can­di­date, tak­ing a par­tic­u­lar stance on an issue will have less an impact than a can­di­date per­ceived to be con­stant. Too much con­stancy how­ev­er, can lead to a per­cep­tion of rad­i­cal­ism, which is also dam­ag­ing for the can­di­date.

This is the least impor­tant of the pub­lic per­cep­tion issues. It has to do with inci­dents of the can­di­date doing things con­sid­ered immoral by dif­fer­ent demo­graph­ics.

The most obvi­ous demo­graphic divide. There are a num­ber of dif­fer­ent eth­nic groups, each with a unique cul­tural back­ground and cor­re­spond­ing unique set of needs and val­ues. A well estab­lished 'blue-blood' eth­nic group will value con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues in a can­di­date, while an immi­grant group will value immi­grant friendly laws. Eth­nic group demo­graph­ics don't add up to 100% as there are peo­ple who don't belong to any eth­nic group, or who belong to sev­er­al.

Peo­ple from dif­fer­ent income classes have dif­fer­ent atti­tudes to issues, espe­cially eco­nomic issues.

Peo­ple from dif­fer­ent income classes have dif­fer­ent atti­tudes to issues, espe­cially social issues.

Cov­ers peo­ple not only with dif­fer­ent edu­ca­tion lev­els, but with dif­fer­ent edu­ca­tion back­grounds. An engi­neer likely has a dif­fer­ent set of hot-but­ton issues than an art major.

Vol­un­teers are warm bod­ies who actu­ally do the busy­work cam­paign­ing. They staff cam­paign events, go door to door, sell can­di­date mer­chan­dise, bus peo­ple to polls, you name it, they do it. Vol­un­teers come in three kinds: Those who will sup­port their can­di­date for free, those who sup­port him for mon­ey, and those who will sup­port any can­di­date for the right price.

In order to do things like adver­tise with tele­vi­sion and ban­ners, travel from town to town, buy an attrac­tive wardrobe and hair­style, a can­di­date needs mon­ey. With­out any mon­ey, a can­di­date is pretty much stuck, and with enough mon­ey, he can run his entire cam­paign, even pay 'vol­un­teers' to do the busy­work for him. A can­di­date can even buy votes if he is clever and so inclined, but he should be warned: a can­di­date with too much money or who is caught using it in unscrupu­lous ways will be seen as very cor­rupt. gfgfd

Each can­di­date has his grass roots sup­port­ers. Grass roots sup­port­ers are peo­ple who sup­port the can­di­date because of their own ide­o­log­i­cal predilec­tions or their own opin­ions on the can­di­date. The num­ber of Grass Roots sup­port­ers for any par­tic­u­lar can­di­date fluc­tu­ates based on his appeal to var­i­ous demo­graphic groups. Can­di­dates with stronger pub­lic per­cep­tions and more con­stant appeal to cer­tain groups will gain more sup­port­ers. The Grass Roots are the pri­mary resource of any can­di­date as they form the bulk of vol­un­teers a can­di­date needs for cam­paign­ing and they are the most con­stant sup­ply of cam­paign funds a can­di­date is likely to receive.

Polit­i­cal par­ties are the king­mak­ers of any elec­tion. A can­di­date who gains the nom­i­na­tion of a polit­i­cal party is nearly guar­an­teed a large num­ber of votes from the par­ty's core sup­port­ers and a large amount of cam­paign funds from the par­ty's reserves. In addi­tion, a party can­di­date auto­mat­i­cally has a very orga­nized and expe­ri­enced cam­paign base and has many of the bureau­cratic wheels greased for him. It's impor­tant to real­ize though, that polit­i­cal par­ties have their own agen­das. They seek can­di­dates who are electable (read 'cen­trist') and who embody their own plat­form. If a can­di­date tries to veer too much from the party mes­sage, they can pun­ish him quickly and ruin his cam­paign. Fur­ther, can­di­dates sup­ported by some polit­i­cal par­ties will auto­mat­i­cally be shunned by sup­ported of other par­ties. Pick­ing a party that is too week could hurt one's chances of win­ning in any given elec­tion.

Lobby groups donate money to can­di­dates that have strong pub­lic per­cep­tions and match them on their issues. If a par­tic­u­lar can­di­date has ties to a par­tic­u­lar lobby group, that group will also be more friendly to them. Lobby groups will some­times try to overtly bribe a can­di­date or directly cam­paign for or against him so they can't be ignored. There are a num­ber of lob­by­ist types.

• Industry
  Each industry will have it's own lobby group trying to get candidates to pass regulations in its favor.
• Unions
  Many industries have corresponding unions which will fight their industries on many issues and will agree with them on others. Not every industry has a union and some unions span several industries.
• Activist groups
  Environmental groups, public health groups, moral-majority groups, all have specific issues which trouble them. Some are one topic groups while others have more comprehensive agendas.