It's amusing and yet horrifying to watch the gang from Greenberg, Carville, and Shrum twist this election around to help an unpopular, clearly unqualified candidate win. They are gleeful at every positive turn of the polls. In one scene, Rosner seems almost orgasmic when he hears good things from a focus group. After the election, a demonic Carville gloats that the only time they led in the polls was on election day, then compares the peak of a campaign to the peak of sex. (Another highlight was Carville trying to spell "repetition" on a marker board and leaving out at least two letters.)
Whether they are immoral or amoral is up to you. GCS helps run Goni on a return to "capitalization", which means converting Bolivia's natural resources into money for its poor public services. But because they're landlocked and don't have the industrial might to extract and sell the resources themselves, they get fleeced by foreign companies and fail to create jobs for the natives. GCS either doesn't understand that their ideal policies don't work in countries like this, or they don't care and just want the paycheck from Goni's campaign. Either way, their arrogance is off-putting and Rosner's contrition at the end of the film about how things turned out doesn't seem heartfelt.
You can also, subtly, find a parallel in this movie to the first Bush campaign. To many, Bush is unqualified to be President and is simply a vessel for other people's ideas, but he was elected anyway. As it becomes obvious from the people and researchers that Goni has botched things in Bolivia, you can't help but think of former Bush administration officials who have left their posts and turned against their former leader. Except for the deadly riots in the streets, they are virtually the same.
If "The War Room" was a movie about the idealism of New Democrats, this one is about what happens when it is taken to the wrong place. Definitely two movies that could be seen back-to-back.
P.S. MF, I'm sure the movie knew modern campaigning goes on in Bolivia. The anger of the audience was from the hubris of GCS thinking they could sweep in from their cloud in Washington, help their guy win, and everything would turn out right.
Whether they are immoral or amoral is up to you. GCS helps run Goni on a return to "capitalization", which means converting Bolivia's natural resources into money for its poor public services. But because they're landlocked and don't have the industrial might to extract and sell the resources themselves, they get fleeced by foreign companies and fail to create jobs for the natives. GCS either doesn't understand that their ideal policies don't work in countries like this, or they don't care and just want the paycheck from Goni's campaign. Either way, their arrogance is off-putting and Rosner's contrition at the end of the film about how things turned out doesn't seem heartfelt.
You can also, subtly, find a parallel in this movie to the first Bush campaign. To many, Bush is unqualified to be President and is simply a vessel for other people's ideas, but he was elected anyway. As it becomes obvious from the people and researchers that Goni has botched things in Bolivia, you can't help but think of former Bush administration officials who have left their posts and turned against their former leader. Except for the deadly riots in the streets, they are virtually the same.
If "The War Room" was a movie about the idealism of New Democrats, this one is about what happens when it is taken to the wrong place. Definitely two movies that could be seen back-to-back.
P.S. MF, I'm sure the movie knew modern campaigning goes on in Bolivia. The anger of the audience was from the hubris of GCS thinking they could sweep in from their cloud in Washington, help their guy win, and everything would turn out right.