Swing Vote: What It Tells Us About the '08 Race, and Why Obama Needs to Put Kevin Costner on His iPod
The makers of Swing Vote, the new film starring Kevin Costner, have pulled off a rare double play, producing a smart political satire that is also heartfelt and moving. It's also a film that turns out to be remarkably relevant to the 2008 race.
Costner plays Ernie "Bud" Johnson, a beer-drinking, unemployed resident of Texico, New Mexico who as fate -- and a voting machine error -- would have it, will single-handedly decide a presidential election (sure, it's high concept, but don't forget that in 2000 New Mexico was decided by just 366 votes). The media descends on him, as do both presidential candidates and their win-at-all-costs campaign managers.
The film has lots to say about -- and gets plenty of laughs from -- the evils of modern campaigns: pollsters, lobbyists, focus groups, and the inevitable mudslinging and negative ads. The film features a bunch of satiric smear ads launched by the competing candidates -- incumbent GOP President Andrew Boone (Kelsey Grammar) and his Democratic challenger, Donald Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper). You can see them here, here, here, here, and here.
But as ludicrous and over-the-top as the film's negative ads are, none of them can hold a candle to the absurd ads unleashed last week by the McCain camp and the RNC.
Paris Hilton and Britney Spears? Really? David Hasselhoff? John McCain has been waiting his whole life to run for president and the best he's got is Britney, Paris, and the Hoff? And Moses? Everything about the McCain media reeks of desperation -- and a stunning disconnect from popular culture. Does the McCain campaign's computers have Google software than can only go back to 2003? And the RNC's ad ended with a riff on Leo DiCaprio in Titanic. That was 1997. When John McCain still had principles.
The film shows how, in their hunger to win, the candidates are willing to say or do just about anything -- and chalk it up to the price of doing business. At one point near the end of the film, both candidates have crises of conscience. President Boone, disgusted at his own willingness to abandon his core principles to court voters -- "dancing the dance," as his campaign manager calls it -- wonders aloud, "What are we about?" To which his campaign manager replies: "Winning. If we don't win, you can't do what you set out to do. And everything you've done won't matter."
But even the two campaign managers -- who are the personification of cynicism -- eventually admit the emptiness of that realpolitik rationalization. When one of them bemoans "the whole bullshit system," the other reminds him: "We are the system. If it's bullshit, it's because we're bullshit."
Watching as these two fictional candidates completely lose sight of why they are running, and lose track of everything other than winning, I couldn't help but think of McCain, reduced to voting against the banning of torture, and denouncing his own immigration bill.
In a moving speech before the film's climactic final debate, Bud comes to terms with his own role in the degradation of our politics:
It's sorta like somewhere along the way I checked out, and it's not like I had huge dreams to begin with... I have never served or sacrificed. The only heavy lifting I have ever been asked is simple stuff, like pay attention -- vote. If America has a true enemy, I guess it's me.
It's an incredibly tough scene to pull off -- but Costner does it beautifully, giving flesh and blood to a man who has stopped believing that he can make a difference or that politics matters, and has simply given up.
Bud Johnson is a powerful stand-in for the 83 million eligible Americans who didn't vote in 2004, and is precisely the kind of voter the Obama campaign should be targeting every day. Reaching America's Buds is more critical than ever; if we don't, and if the Buds keep turning away, disheartened and disillusioned, we will never see real change.
Instead we'll see campaigns spending all their time courting the affection of fickle, fence-sitting swing voters. The kinds of people who could be influenced by the Britney/Paris ad.
So each and every day Barack Obama should roll out of bed in the morning and ask himself, "What can I do to get the real life Bud Johnsons of this country to check back in, to pay attention, to vote, to reconnect to the dreams they have abandoned along the way?" I recently suggested that Obama fill his Kindle and his iPod with the great speeches of RFK and Martin Luther King. He should add Costner's finale to the mix.
I have a very small part in Swing Vote, playing myself. Talk about type casting. We filmed in New Mexico, in an arena. I was in a booth with Aaron Brown and Lawrence O'Donnell. There were laptops all over the set, and I kept pulling up the home page of HuffPost on each of them.
We filmed my scene all night. The producers had gotten me a hotel room, but I never even saw it. We kept shooting and I eventually just went straight from the set to the airport the next morning. In between shots, we would go to Kevin Costner's trailer and sit outside under the stars while he played guitar.
I watched Costner film his big speech that night. And it was powerful. But not nearly as powerful as it is now, in the context of the current state of the race. So go see Swing Vote. Bring your cynicism, you idealism, and a box of Kleenex.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
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Obama does not really embrace what Boone Pickens is saying about natural gas. Nat gas may be expensive but at least the money stays here in the USA. We can get to 30% reduction in 5 years if we executed a strategy based on aggressive subsutution of imported oil with wind, solar, nat gas, clean coal, off shore drilling. Obama will pander to a lot of groups that will slow down the process: ethanol lobby and environmental groups that oppose nat gas, coal, and offshire drilling.
I sit on the fence.
I have read Obama’s energy plan to reduce US oil consumption by 35% by 2030. This means that the US will have only sent $16 to $20 trillion dollars to foreign producers of oil. Can we wait that long? What will be the value of the US dollar by 2030?
I’m looking for a presidential candidate who understands that to change our foreign polices we must achieve energy independence now; not in 30 or 50 years. We have the natural resources, we have the technology, but do we have the will to succeed?
Please, someone be a real candidate for change.
Why is it that real people such as us, can see the pitfalls the Obama campaign is running into, and can offer solutions to avoid them and win this election, but HIS OWN PEOPLE AND THE DEM LEADERS CANNOT?
Arianna, "we need change!" is a very weak metaphor for "THROW THE BUMS OUT!"
Indeed, I have saved a US News & World Report magazine from election season of 1994, with the charicature of a (balding, middle-age, business-suited) Joe average- American pushing his hands against his head in frustrated rage, under the USNWR banner headline (in bold, black letters), "THROW THE BUMS OUT!"
Of course American voter angst & rage that year was directed against.... incumbent DEMOCRATS, even though 1994 America was in the grip of the BUSH-1 (Sr.) RECESSION, brought about by the twin economic hammer-blows of Bush Sr., Cheney, and Rumsfeld Republicans BOTCHING the post- Cold War "PEACE DIVIDEND," and even more importantly, the $500 BILLION dollars (in late 1980s money) taxpayers had to fork over to payoff the Right-Wing "DEREGULATION!" mantra that led to the Savings & Loan Crisis.
FOURTEEN YEARS LATER, the Democrats STILL can _NOT_ lay the cost of Republican DEFICIT ECONOMICS (aka loot, plunder, & pillage the treasury) at the feet of the Right-Wing agenda.
In 1992 Ross Perot, at his own expense, EDUCATED America about the Bush-1 DEFICITS.
In 2008, the inside-DC Democrat "leaders" are ONCE AGAIN REMISS in POINTING OUT THAT REPUBLICANS CAUSED the BUSH-2 DEFICITS and BUSH-2 RECESSION - and that THEY should be SHOWN THE DOOR!! _Not_ merely the anemic "America needs change."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3015540/US-Budget-Deficit-or-Surplus-1960present
It's also about patriotism. How much do we really care about this country? With all its faults, it's hard to think of any country in the world where a black man - in a minority - would be the nominee for President of the United States. Personally, I am fearful about the condition of our country.
Or am I simply living in a paralell universe? Perhaps the war in Iraq is going according to plans? Perhaps it is not the biggest blunder of our lifetimes? Perhaps it is a smashing success?
Perhaps the huge debt and deficits are not bankrupting our country? Perhaps Dick Cheney was right - deficits don't matter? It doesn't really matter how much we borrow or spend?
Perhaps in the other "universe", we will win the war in Iraq and it will not matter that we invaded that country for no legitimate reason.? Perhaps democracy will spread throughout the Middle East and flourish for centuries to come?
Perhaps our economy is still doing great, despite all the problems with the banks, home mortgages, school loans programs, investment firms, etc? Maybe it is all in my head? Maybe all those folks in the other "universe" love this country just as much as I do, but they only look at reality in a different way?
Perhaps the moon is really made out of green cheese?
hey arianna,
know what a much bigger story than john edwards, china and russia/georgia is for america? try ron suskind's book: THE WAY OF THE WORLD and yesterday's confirmation by philip giraldi of the AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE MAGAZINE that the allegations that cheney ordered forgeries to tie suddam hussein to 9/11 (A FELONY, WAR CRIME AND IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE) is, in fact TRUE!.
this should be plastered over your site. what the hell?
Good point. This is so major there should be a Big Page on it, linked from the front one. No offense, but HuffPost should be screaming this book. The Edwards story is over and done--do we really need to know more? These Suskind revelations can at least make sure history doesn't bury the crimes of this administration.
Good point.
Arianna,
Just want to say how glad I am that you are out there speaking on behalf of the rational, pragmatic side of the progressive movement. I always feel relieved to see you on a panel, knowing that what you say will make good sense, will be clear and to the point, and will be important. You have changed minds.
You make me proud to be a woman, and you are an inspiration not only to me but to my twenty-something daughter who considers you her #1 role model.
Thank you for making the decision to direct your considerable talents to making this country a better place for all of us, our children and our grandchildren.
I'm curious about this film for one reason: how did so many talented actors wind up in this totally implausible piece of Hollywood dreck?
One man deciding an election? You call it high concept, and you cite a state election that was decided by a few hundred votes, but a national election? IT COULD NEVER HAPPEN.
Also, I just watched the political ads for the movie and was floored by how unfunny they were.
See it at your own risk.
Here are some words to look up:
Metaphor
Allegory
Regardless of your assumptions, the movie is well worth seeing. It's not perfect, but dreck it ain't...
Do you recall the election of 2000? How many votes on the Supreme Court put Bush in office?
It not only could happen, it has happened, and it has unleashed an era of evil that has no parallel in US history!
When I watched the ads for the movie, I was also unimpressed and thought it a stupid concept. But I am willing to give it a second look, if it comes highly recommened by Ariana. Sometimes previews can be misleading (they might be trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator to see the film).
I think this a remake of Barrymore classic "The Great Man Votes". That involved much lower office.
Not a bad strategy for Obama! Once it becomes Obama vs. Limbaugh, slugging it out every day, sooner rather than later, Limbaugh's bound to say something so outrageous that McCain has to disavow and denounce him. Place the GOP on the defensive and dominate the news cycle with this for a while, a la the Reverend Wright, who kept Obama off balance for a week or two last spring. It will be fun to watch.
Maybe the reason the Bud Johnsons have checked out is because they realize we always get the same lesser-of-two-evils choices. More than two candidates are running for president. We never hear about them in anything but the off beat press. The People need to hear every voice in this and other races to get real change in any of our governments, local, state, federal. "Vote for me. My opponent is a republican. I'm a democrat...." Never a discussion of issues that actually affect us. Never a mention about how the same two parties, really one party in two suits, rip us off and screw us over. America is brainwashed into thinking that we need to keep giving money to the wealthy and pay taxes so they don't have to. That's what that home loan legislation was really about, but the only two candidates that we are allowed to hear from say it's really about saving the home owners from foreclosure.... This, the oil crisis, global-warming, inflation... are everyday issues that the only two candidates that we hear from are not something they deal with and so aren't important enough dissect and analyze to come up with real sensible policy that would actually help us. Instead we're distracted by flag pins, Britney, Toby, all disguising the fact that politicians only care about us long enough to get our vote and keeping them entrenched in the luxuries of power. We wonder why Bud has checked out?
Obama has tried to bridge that artificial GOP/Dem divide. He has tried to speak about the issues. He has tried to elevate the discussion. McCain wants to engage in a cage match. He wants to talk about non-issues. He creates distractions like his Brittney/Paris and Moses ads. He is enabled in this quest by most of the media who seem attracted like flies to honey by McCains cynical, smirking, inappropriate laughing over serious matters.
Do you see the resemblance between McCain and Bush! They are frat twins - not fraternal twins, frat-boy twins.
1. The reason that only two of the candidates are talked about is because there isn't a third party candidate that stand a chance of competing let alone winning
2. This concept that there is absolutely no difference between the candidates is PRECISELY what Ralph Nader said in 2000 when it was Gore and Bush. You think that that we'd be in the same situation now if Gore had been allowed to win in 2000? I can't think of a better illustration to demonstrate that there are HUGE differences and the consequences of standing back and allowing another republican to take office will be astronomical. It may not be perfect, for from it, but there IS a significant difference between McCain and Obama.
Our system is set up as winner take all. That means that if one party has a majority of seats, they control all legislation.
The two party system usually involves lesser of evils.
One thing they are aligned on is the preservation of this monopoly.
A lot of pretty pictures that leave you with that "feel good family movie of the summer" vive as you leave the cinema will not mean squat if its message doesn't get across to people. Hollywood has been making movies about Washington politicos who suddenly become "enlightened" since Capra released "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."
All very nice and Disney-like, but real life doesn't work that way. Sadly enough, the majority of our elected officials tend to choose ambition and greed over ethics and moral reasoning. Nobody has a Claude Rains moment were they spill their guts in front of Congress and repent for their sins, let alone tell the truth about anything. And so, voters keep picking the wrong candidates, or as in Arianna's argument, they don't exercise their right to vote at all.
That is far worse a prospect. It's what's kept Big Oil men like Bush and Cheney in power for two full terms. By all means, go watch Costner play the guitar and do his "common man" thing, but keep the film's message in mind and actually do something this November to turn things around.
Otherwise, the whole point of making this film will, once again, be meaningless.
ARIANNA......thank you so much.
THIS is the most important matter for winning in 2008.
I will go and see the movie and PLEASE YOUNG VOTERS..............register and vote for a MORE DEMOCRATIC AMERICA.
Thanks
I'm a typical "Bud Johnson" here. Centrist who tends to vote Democratic. And I'm sitting this election out, Arianna. Most of my peers will be voting McCain. It's a little too late to reach us now, that bridge has been burned.
Too bad for you people...you will all suffer just like the rest of us, if McCain wins. You all are only hurting yourselves.
Obama 08&12
Steve, do me a big favor, vote! I am a disgusted Dem too
but this country cannot afford 4 more years of Bush-like
policy. Right after this election I will be an Independant.
And besides, lot's of things can happen before the election.
If you care about this country you have a RESPONSIBILITY to vote. It's not a good enough excuse to say that you aren't completely happy with your choices.
Do you care about the war in Iraq?
Do you care about whether the next president drags us into war in Iran?
Do you care about universal healthcare?
Do you care about the supreme court and the decisions they will make about human rights for the 20 years?
Do you care about energy policy?
Do you care about the environment?
Do you care about economic policies?
Do you favor corporate welfare?
If you say yes to even a few of these issues, then you MUST vote. McCain and Obama's stands on each of these issues are clearly different.
I just can't imagine anyone willingly giving up their right to try and shape the future of their country. The system is not perfect, in fact, it is often a mess, which we need everyone thinking person to participate with their own voice.
We can rise as a country or we can sink as one. The choice is obvious
Actually, McCain nailed it, that’s why the polls are even among likely voters.
I still believe Barack will win, because people aren't interested in the issues anymore. They hear tag lines like "I'm for the future" (who isn't!?), and "I'm for hope" (who isn't!?) and they feel all warm & fuzzy.
Now that "Barack the Messiah" has been exposed as nothing more that a handsome nitwit rockstar with a nice smile, whose positions change on a daily basis, libs are crying about it. Blame yourselves. You lifted Barack up to Jesus status, but guess what... that fact is that he's just a one term senetor with little experience, a sketchy past (even refers to himself as a former "Pothead. Junkie" in his book 'Audacity of Hope', decides to not visit wounded soldiers when the news crews can't follow him, and flip flops daily.
I love the interviews CNN and other news programs do on the street. When reporters ask "what do you like about Obama" and people respond "he's cute" and "I like how he dresses" and "he's different" and "he seems nice"... it saddens me that Americans vote that way. People voted Bush because they thought he would be fun to have a beer with. People voted Clinton because he talked about his underwear on MTV, and played Sax on the Arsenio Hall Show. That's how young people are voting. Shameful.
All hail Obama the Messiah. Sad.
(Yes, I know McCain is a pathetic flip flopper too!)
You people continue to try to label Obama...he never said he was the Messiah. Tell the truth, the only issue you have with Obama is because he is black (and half white), now this is SAD. You talk about the sad reasons why Americans vote, there is no sadder reason to not vote for someone, simply because of the color of his skin. This is real sad and if McCain wins we are all going to h*ll in a handbasket.
Obama 08&12
You need to do your homework.
The latest poll read today on NPR radio by black host Juan Williams shows that 8% of white Americans consider race the most important factor in the election, but 20% of blacks (ninety-five percent of which will vote democrat) consider race most important.
That's right. One fifth of blacks use their racist hatred to decide how they will vote. The media tries to bury stories like this.
Thank you NPR for having the courage.
It continues to be amazing how people can say such things about Obama with a straight face (assumed as I can't see your face).
A brilliant mind by anyone's measure who has known and/or been taught by him.
A community worker turned politician who has been known for nearly 2 decades as one who reaches across the aisle and reaches to the other side to find compromises that work and move everyone forward.
A presidential hopeful who has more substance in his policies than most people with 2 or 3 or 4 times his experience.
A man who is both a gentleman and a statesman.
Heaven forbid we should have someone truly competent in the White House.
Heaven forbid the "Buds" should take a chance and vote for the possibility of a turn toward national awakening and progress.
This are just a few of the policies for which Obama stands for:
1. Ending the war in Iraq
2. Using diplomacy to prevent war and conflict
3. Universal Healthcare
4. Supreme Court Justices that fight for civil rights
5. Economic policies that focus on creating jobs rather than rewarding companies for outsourcing.
6. Investing in people and not corporate welfare
7. A move towards alternative energy along the lines of an Apollo or Manhatten project which will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, reduce if not eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, and reduce green house gases
This is what McCain stands for:
1. War
2. Corporate Greed
3. Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations
4. Deregulation
If you bothered to actually read a newspaper or watch real news (not Fox fake news), you might realize this.
This is the only current film I wanted to see, and I drove 50
miles to be able to see it. It brought me to tears, for the very
reasons mentioned, the apathy and indifference I see every day
where I live. And my own apathy. This is a great performance by
Costner. And the message is relevant. Go see the movie! It's
worth the price of the ticket! And bring teenagers, they just might
learn something.
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