A Perfect Candidate - Reaction

An okay documentary about Oliver North's senate campaign in Virginia in 1994. Worth watching if you're interested in the campaigning process. Explores the use of negative ads without appearing negative, flip flopping, and the failure of politicians to state platforms or opinions on any issues. It even explores political alliances of necessity, as exemplified by Wilder's endorsement of Robb. The movie to some extent was more about North's campaign manager and a Washington Post reporter and their involvement with / reactions to the campaign than North or Robb themselves. In fact, we don't see into North or Robb much. Roger Ebert remarks on this lack of platforms and seeing the candidates only as much as they put themselves forward: "Personalities are being sold, not parties or philosophies, and `A Perfect Candidate' makes that process even more interesting because one candidate, Robb, apparently has no personality at all, while the other, North, has two."

I didn't think the documentary gave that great a background on North and the Iran-Contra affair at the beginning of the film, but the friend I watched it with thought it did okay. I would've preferred more about the lying to congress and the perjury, as this significantly affected how adults I knew voted in the race. In retrospect the movie covered the issue as well as it was dealt with in the race itself. Overall, the film felt reasonably balanced.

It's interesting to watch in 2007 for observations on how Virginia was in the 1990s (e.g., confederate flags, religious right, gun owners). Also interesting: the movie briefly talked about how North's campaign manager was involved with a dirty memo alleging Marc Foley's homosexuality, an issue that was in the news quite a bit last year (2006). It's even amusing to see how much 1994, with haircuts, mustaches, and fashion, looked like the 1980s.

Also striking is the contrast between how good the men involved are at politics. North is charismatic. Robb is not; he's awkward. Clinton, in his brief appearance to arrange Wilder's endorsement of Robb, is even a bit better than North.

The commentary reveals the directors cheated somewhat in editing, distributing some clips throughout the movie (rather placing them at temporally appropriate places) simply to generate the structure, plot, and character growth the directors desired. It worked.