The Polished Veneer of Politics has Become Unvarnished Since this "Insider" Uncovering Circa 1972. It was Much More Interesting, For Sure, During it's Initial Release (now this stuff is common everyday knowledge), But that Doesn't Mean that it is Irrelevant or Dated or Uninteresting.The Perfect Casting of Robert Redford as an Idealist Lawyer with No Interest in Politics is Recruited to Run for U.S. Senator and Convinced to do so Because He is Told that He Can Get His Ideas Heard and in The End..."You Lose".Peter Boyle is Quite Good as the "King Maker" and the Media Machine Behind The Candidate is Convincingly Portrayed. In Fact the Whole Political Scene from the Early Seventies is Given Gravitas by the Screenplay Penned by Former Eugene McCarthy Speechwriter Jeremy Larner, and Received an Oscar for This Work.Overall, it is a Bit Startling, but Maybe Not, that the Issues Presented in the Campaign are Still Debated and Divisive Today. Also, the Rules of the Game Haven't Changed That Much Either. The Preparation, the Concessions, the Presentation, the Do's and Don'ts are Pretty Much the Same Now as Forty Years Ago.The Film was a Big Hit, a Liberal Wish Fulfillment During the Nixon Years and the Vietnam Era, but it Wasn't the Electorate or Electrifying Left Wing Candidates that Silenced (at least for a little while) the "Silent Majority". It was "Tricky Dicks" Dirty Tactics and the Cover-up and His Loathsome Vice President's (Spiro Agnew) Corruption.

I was shown this in social studies class in my senior year in high school decades ago. The liberal teacher used the movie to teach us how real-life political candidates are developed, and he asked us questions such as whether debates were truly useful except as publicizing candidates.The story itself: Bill McKay, son of a former machine politician governor of California, is talked into running for the Democratic candidate for U. S. Senator by a campaign manager who has just come off a losing election of another candidate. The manager expects McKay to lose anyway, so he tells McKay to say whatever he wants since it won't make any difference.But as the campaign goes on, the supposedly strong incumbent is vulnerable after all, and McKay wins the Democratic primary, and there is a serious chance McKay could really win the election. No longer can he just say what his beliefs are; he now has to draw in more voters who don't want a strong liberal. Solution: McKay has to be much more vague in answering questions (as directed by his managers), and to give generalized platitudes even his campaign team laugh at. He talks about unity and solving problems-but at the same time fails to tell the public what he intends to do about them. He wins anyway-and is confused as to what to do once he has the job.While it is true that an empty suit can win an election (look at who our current President is), the movie's inherent problem is that the movie doesn't really give a reason that McKay should have won over the incumbent. Longtime incumbents normally lose if demographics change greatly or if they alienate their constituency in some way; the movie depicts nothing of the sort. Also, McKay shows little enthusiasm for running throughout the whole campaign; surely there are others who would have wanted the spot instead? Still, if nothing else, the best part of the story was where the campaign manager is told to take a chair-and he does so, literally.

This movie is not bad for the first hour. It shows an independent man being chosen, almost at random, to campaign to be a California representative in the U.S. Senate. He is permitted to express, at the beginning, his own independent views; but as he becomes more and more popular his politics, his speeches begin to be more and more circumscribed in order to allow him to gain political office. In other words he starts to be a "real Politician" and tow the line in order to be victorious.The latter half of the movie seemed redundant to me – it is just one long campaign trail – with speeches and meetings with crucial individuals to gain popularity. It actually was somewhat boring. See Primary Colors for a more sordid close-up of the political process.

The Candidate is a film starring Robert Redford. Its themes include how the political machine corrupts and the need to dilute one's message to win an election. There are many parallels between the 1970 California Senate election between John V. Tunney and George Murphy, but Redford's character, Bill McKay, is a political novice and Tunney was a seasoned Congressman.The film was shot in Northern California in 1971. Peter Boyle plays the political consultant Marvin Lucas. The screenplay was written by Jeremy Larner, a speechwriter for Senator Eugene J. McCarthy during McCarthy's campaign for the 1968 Democratic Presidential nomination.Director Michael Ritchie and executive producer/star Robert Redford satirically explore the machinations and manipulations of media- age political campaigns in this cynical political drama.Rumpled left-wing California lawyer Bill McKay, the son of a former governor, is enlisted by campaign maestro Marvin Lucas to challenge Republican incumbent Crocker Jarmon for his Senate seat. McKay agrees, but only if he can say exactly what he thinks. That approach is all well and good when McKay does not seem to have a chance, but things change when his honesty unexpectedly captivates the electorate. As McKay inches up in the polls, Lucas and company start to do what it takes to win, leaving McKay to ponder the consequences of his political seduction. Working without studio interference from a script by Jeremy Larner, a speechwriter for 1968 Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, Ritchie enhanced the behind-the-scenes realism of Larner's insights with a realistic, cinéma vérité approach. He orchestrated a campaign parade for "candidate" Redford that drew such a considerable unstaged audience that local politicians wanted to draft Redford for a real election. The first and arguably the sharpest expose of the new media-determined American political process, The Candidate offers producer-star Redford one of his strongest dramatic roles; Michael Ritchei's cautionary tale became prophetic in its message.Also,Redford's resemblance to the telegenic Kennedys, and his character's resonance with the future career of California governor Jerry Brown, only emphasized how close to the bone The Candidate was (and is). Released the fateful year of Richard Nixon's reelection, the film garnered accolades, if not substantial box office; Larner won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and thanked the "politicians of our time" for inspiration.Creating a documentary fiction about the semi-truths manufactured to market a candidate, The Candidate shrewdly exposed the effects of the media on the increasingly cynical political process, posing unanswerable questions that have become all the more pressing with every soundbite-ruled election.