Sun 11 May 2008
“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.”
(* Please note: The original upload of this post included a YouTube video of the Al Gore speech referenced here. However, that video link came with an ‘undocumented feature’ - a virus of some sort. It knocked out this post in its entirety at first, then, after a migration to new servers corrupted the entire blog. After some trial and error, and no small amount of debugging, the video link was found to be the cause. It has been removed.)
In 1992 filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus were given unprecedented access to the inner workings of a political campaign as it unfolded toward election day. That campaign was the team of Clinton/Gore pitted against the re-election of Bush/Quayle (remember Dan Quayle?), and that election put Bill and Al in the White House for eight years.
Released in 1993, this Oscar-nominated documentary bore cinematic witness to the ’secret’ machinations of a presidential candidate’s quest for office and quickly found a worldwide audience. It was followed by distribution success that kept it on the college and independent cinema track for years. This was nothing new for Pennebaker as many of his docs have been received with similar success.
I watched it again last night for the first time since it was released fifteen years ago. Considering what’s happening on the Democratic front these days with both Hillary and Barack — the former on the verge of moving aside and the latter on the verge of ‘movin’ on up’ — this film is worth another look, for two reasons.
One, the comparison of then versus now. The ideals, talking points and issues at play are the same today as they were then. Does that mean that nothing’s changed? Does it mean that Clinton really didn’t impact Washington that much during his tenure? It’s a wonderful film to watch in present-day context, because it makes you wonder if Obama is going through the same maze of deflections, reflections and deceptions. It made me wonder if Obama really can make the difference this time. It reallymade me wonder if he and his handlers hadn’t watched this documentary and treated it as a sort of political Rosetta Stone in plotting their own course toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Watching the Ragin’ Cajun, James Carville, Clinton’s right-hand man during the 1992 campaign (Obama recently referred to him as nothing more than “…a performance artist…”), and George Stephanopoulos who was the campaign’s communications director, and who is now with ABC News, juggle thoughts and ideas and plot attacks on rivals is insightful and, at times, downright hilarious (don’t you just love run-on sentences?!)
The second reason is Al Gore. Although I had seen this doc before as I said, I’d forgotten how magnetic and impressive Al Gore could be. In fact, the one thing I came away with on this viewing was the speech he gave during a whistle-stop late in the campaign and mere days before the election. He captivates the crowd with his now-famous ‘up and down’ description of the economy, jobs, housing, trade, and policies both foreign and otherwise. The look on the beaming faces of Bill and Hillary Clinton as they listen on say it all - we made the right choice for running mate. The result is very reminiscent of Obama’s crowd-pleasing ‘yes we can’ Gregorian-like chant.
(* This was where the original YouTube video was placed.)
Where was THAT speech during his 2000 run at the presidency?! And who will be Obama’s choice for Veep…?
As the race for ’super-sized’ delegates continues it’s Bataan Death March (as Jon Stewart calls it), the battle lines between both presumptive pre-convention candidates, Obama and McCain, are being drawn… likely with pencils that have BIG erasers on the end!
Seems like deja vu all over again!
It’s fun, and sometimes a little daunting, to look at material one has written some years back to see if it still stands up, or simply falls down. Be it political commentary, fictional critique, wry observation or impassioned love letter, one rarely looks at old material through new eyes and comes away feeling the same way they did when it was originally written. That’s to be expected, I guess – we all change. For some of us that change is incremental, for others a paradigm shift occurs.