miller's crossing

I've been watching a lot of movies now that I'm back working at the video store. In case you missed it at the Wisconsin Film Festival, the documentary Our Brand Is Crisis came out earlier this month on DVD. Filmmaker Rachel Boynton takes us on a fascinating ride, following U.S. campaign consultants with the firm Greenberg Carville Shrum and their client Bolivian presidential candidate Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada.

I found it difficult to watch the extensive and candid interviews with the American strategists and the behind-the-scenes footage shot during focus group sessions. The challenge for me was seeing the lenghts to which the electioneers went to justify their cynical trade and the degree to which persuasion trumped all other concerns.

"It's progressive politics and foreign policy for profit,"GCS pollster and strategist Jeremy Rosner explained, although I'm not sure whether he was refering to his firm or the candidates for whom GCS works. "Simplicity, relevance, repetition" of a message is the secret to shaping opinion according to uber-strategist James Carville.

I'd be interested to know whether any National Endowment for Democracy money somehow managed its way into Goni's campaign and ultimately into GCS's coffers. Regardless, campaign strategists like these guys -- both Democrats and Republicans -- push a kind of shallow democracy that embraces neoliberalism, an economic philosophy that benefits both the strategists themselves through their electoral work and their transnational corporate clients. Yipee! Everyone wins.