I chose the film, The Campaign to illustrate how public elections work and the
many dealings behind the scenes that we as private citizens may or may not be
aware of. The film is a comedy and I thoroughly enjoy the film for its comedic
appeal, but it does demonstrate modern day practices for campaigning, democracy
and public service in action.
The film’s plot is about a United States
congressman who has run and won four terms unopposed, but two corrupt
businessmen brothers are interested in buying the election to have a willing
candidate at their disposal. So they bring in an otherwise unlikely candidate
to run against the current congressman, fund his campaign with hopes that he
will allow them to run things however they see fit. This is the start of a wild
campaign run for both men who will stop at nothing to win. Throughout the film,
there are displays of honor, ethics and accountability or lack thereof, corruption
in government, privatization, the reinvention of government, leadership and
power.
Honor,
ethics and accountability play a significant role in this film as the film is
based on corrupt businessmen who want to purchase a congressman by putting him
in office to allow them to operate their businesses without regulation or
opposition from state or government. In the beginning of the film, incumbent
Marty Huggins is the one they have chosen to run for office, but unbeknownst to
Marty, they want to put him in office for all the wrong reasons. Unfortunately,
I am sure this scenario happens often. Who can forget the recently ousted
Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich, whose actions landed him 14 years in
federal prison for trying to sell Barack Obama's vacant senate seat in exchange
for campaign funds or other quid pro quo favors. Similar scenarios played out
in The Campaign as current Congressman Cam Brady campaigns for
votes and funds; there is one scene where Goldman-Sachs offers Cam Brady a
contribution of $500,000, granted he picks up the phone whenever they call
(wink). Needless to say, Cam Brady takes their offer.
The film portrays several miscarriages of honor
and ethics, mostly from Cam Brady who refuses to lose his seat in Congress, but
also from Marty Huggins who learns to “play in the big leagues” and is coerced
by his campaign manager to sabotage Cam Brady by calling the police on him
after a night of drinking at Marty's home. Cam Brady is subsequently pulled
over and arrested for DUI, causing a stir in the media and a drop in the polls.
Both candidates eventually hold themselves accountable for their actions in a
show of morality and accountability and admit their wrongdoings to the public
on the final day of the election. Marty Huggins utilizes his final campaign
commercial to tell the people of North Carolina that he has lied to them and
vows that if he is elected, he will be the most honest politician. Cam Brady
also has a change of heart, as he actually wins the election due to rigged election
machines provided by the Motch brothers, but during his acceptance speech realizes
that he is not the man for the job due to his indifference about public service
and what his winning really signifies. He goes on to say that he only wanted to
win because he enjoyed being “Congressman Cam Brady”. Both men displayed a lack
of honor, ethics and accountability during the film, but come back around to
realize their faults and make things right. Like Cam Brady and Rod Blagojevich,
the power that comes with a political seat went to their heads, and they were
using that power to benefit themselves.
With
the possession of power, comes a lot of responsibility. Especially in public
offices where power influences decisions that will affect many. Shafritz states
that “power is the ability or the right to exercise authority of others.” The
founder of The People’s Republic of China, Mao Zdeng, said “political power
grows out of the barrel of a gun” however, it seems that nowadays, political
power is stemming from the bank accounts of large corporations willing to make
substantial donations to campaigns in order subliminally push forward their own
agenda. Corporations or private citizens with deep pockets have the ability to
heavily influence public policy. In The
Campaign this
was the essence of the film. Two corrupt businessmen, the Motch brothers, with
the financial means, plan on “purchasing” the next congressman, Marty Huggins,
by providing him with $100 million dollars in campaign contributions, the best
campaign manager, Tim Whattley, new clothing and furnishings and anything else
he may need to win. This entire film is a precise example of the external
perspective of power. Even the current congressman, Cam Brady, finds himself
accepting large campaign contributions from corporations, and whoever else
wants to contribute to his campaign in return for favors after he wins. As I
mentioned earlier, Cam Brady and other actual politicians have been at the
forefront of investigations due to an abuse of power.
There
is a very fine line between abuse of power and corruption in government, but
there is a huge correlation. What happened in The
Campaign is corruption in government.
In the later part of the film, when Marty Huggins is made aware of what the two
businessmen brothers are trying to accomplish by putting him in office, he
decides not to go along with their plan. He tells them that he is not comfortable
with selling a large part of his district to China so they can bring factories
to the U.S. This leads the two brothers to seek an alternative plan, which is
to reach out to Cam Brady to see if he is willing to take part in their plan,
which he is, so they begin to back him with campaign contributions and support.
Congressman Cam Brady accepts the offer, solely because he wants to win and
remain “Congressman Cam Brady”. At this point, Cam Brady is guilty of
corruption and lying, which Shafritz says are the two most common lapses of
honor. Cam Brady has knowingly accepted the plan from the corrupt brothers and
goes on to lie to the people of the district, all while knowing that eventually
there will be a large part of North Carolina that will no longer belong to the
U.S. Aside from the immediate effect this will have on the state, Shafritz says
that when public officials misuse their power for self-gain, then the rule of
law no longer prevails. Corruption in government illegally puts public
officials above the law and removes the claim that in democracy, all
individuals are equal. Both candidates in The Campaign are
guilty of corruption, by leading and unsuspecting public to believe that they
are voting for candidates that have their best interest in mind when in
actuality that could not be further from the truth.
Since The Campaign is
essentially about choosing a leader, I thought it was only appropriate to discuss
the leadership aspects within the movie. Shafritz describes leadership as “the
exercise of authority, whether formal or informal, in directing and
coordinating the work of others”. Shafritz also says that the best leaders are those
who can simultaneously exercise both formal and informal leadership where
formal is based on authority in office, and informal is the willingness of the
people to follow someone whose qualities of authority they admire. I believe
that at one time, Cam Brady possessed both of these, which is why he won the
election four times and ran unopposed. Perhaps the people of North Carolina
felt he was doing a fine job, but it was towards the end when he began to lose
his ethics and was accused of having an affair that the people and the two
corrupt businessmen felt that Cam Brady was on his way out. So, they thought to
bring in a new leader, Marty Huggins. During their first campaign debate,
everyone thought Marty Huggins was dead on arrival, but he demonstrated that he
can be a leader by giving appropriate answers and keeping the people of North
Carolina in mind. He electrified the crowd and was the clear winner in the
first debate instantly making Cam Brady worried about how difficult this
election will be to win. People began to follow Marty Huggins for the same
reason we rally behind other politicians when they campaign, we feel an
informal sense of leadership. As citizens, we listen to debates, we listen to
campaign commercials and slogans, and we choose sides, political parties, and
agendas to help guide us to that candidate we are going to vote for. Cam Brady
and Marty Huggins were displaying informal leadership and referent power
throughout their campaign. People
rallied behind them because they saw special qualities within them, and
followed them based on their liking and admiration of that candidate allowing
them to lead on behalf of their state.
Speaking of choosing a leader, most people
choose the candidate which they feel most closely represents their values,
beliefs and overall “culture”. Cam Brady and Marty Huggins were two very
different candidates and obviously led two different campaigns. Marty Huggins
was a religious man who mentioned God often and Cam Brady had not been to
church in years. Cam Brady recently had a scandalous affair and Marty Huggins
was a happily married man. Nonetheless, even while both men were different in
their lives and lived in different cultures, they both fell victims to the
political culture. The campaign brought out behavior in both men that they were
not used to portraying, simply because they wanted to win. The culture of any
public administrator is very important for it will determine how future
problems are handled. Do the people of North Carolina want a religious man
leading them with little or no political experience, or a man with plenty of
experience, but that has been accused of having an extramarital affair? Both
candidates in The Campaign had to deal with the outside cultural environment.
A constant pressure from the outside cultural environment is placed on the
campaigners to act, behave and demonstrate leadership, charisma, intelligence,
morality and achievement. They must choose their words and actions very carefully
for they will surely come back to haunt them if they don’t. Both participants
went the extra mile for votes, but in this film, it’s Cam Brady who stops at
nothing to reach potential voters. Cam Brady went from church to church (when
he is not a religious man), to hunting to secure the gun vote, and always supporting
our military, to demonstrate patriotism and nationalism. Cam Brady made an
attempt to blend with everyone’s culture so he may find common ground with his
constituents. It may be because of this that he still wins the election, but
the film hints it's because of the rigged voting machines provided by the Motch
brothers (scandal), but people still felt that Cam Brady was the better man for
the job because of his display of charisma, energy, and socioeconomic status.
Perhaps voters were more comfortable with his culture and leadership and felt
that his culture would be better equipped to handle the wants of North Carolina.
In the end of the film, Marty Huggins becomes Congressman
after Cam Brady has a moment of clarity and steps down. With Marty now firmly
in control he decides to do some “reinventing of government” of his own. He opens a case
against the Motch brothers claiming they are guilty of campaign rigging and
election fraud, but the Motch brothers claim their innocence and state that
everything they did is legal, but they are subsequently arrested for being
involved with Marty's campaign manager, Tim Whattley, who is actually an
international fugitive. Throughout Marty's campaign, his slogan is “Bring your
brooms, because it's a mess” referencing Washington DC’s many corrupt
politicians. Shafritz states that each new managerial generation has its own
ideas about the “one best way” and that governments at all levels are being
forced by events to change the way they operate. That is exactly what Marty
Huggins was doing when he brought the Motch brothers to court. He was trying to
make an example of the brothers for their corruption and wrongdoing. Marty
Huggins was rethinking how government was being run because for too long he
felt that “big money” was running Washington and he wanted to change that by
ousting these two brothers. While a fictional account, nonetheless, I wish more
politicians and campaign contributors would be more closely regulated to avoid
scenarios such as this one from actually happening.
Since this film was focused more on the honor
and ethics of public administrators than anything else, The Campaign managed
to touch on each of the four levels of ethics. First, the personal morality,
which both Marty Huggins and Cam Brady experienced when they knew that selling
out their state to a greedy corporation, was wrong. The second level is
professional ethics, which says that public administrators recognize rules and
norms that compel them to act in a certain way. Both candidates acted professional
when it was necessary, but all of these professional norms were violated at one
time or another by one or both candidates. The third level of ethics is
organizational. Formal and informal rules of ethical conduct such as public
laws, executive orders, and agency rules all fall under organizational. Needless
to say, both campaigners did not follow the third level of ethics as they
should have. With actions such as driving under the influence, accepting
illegal campaign contributions, rigging public elections, these are all actions
that violate the public laws and formal and informal rules of ethical conduct.
Lastly, social ethics requires that members of a given society act in ways that
protect individuals and further the progress of the group as a whole. This
happened in the end with the election of Marty Huggins because he truly did not
want to win to serve his home and community. This level of ethics was also violated
throughout most of the movie since both politicians were involved in the
election rigging and other inappropriate behavior such as Cam Brady's affair,
which would belong to Cam's social conscience. In the movie, Cam even tried to
promote his affair in a campaign commercial thinking it would get him more
votes from men, which it might have had it not tested so negatively with women.
The
Campaign demonstrates
democracy, suffrage, the impact of media and technological advances, corruption
in government, and scandals all play a role in our own democracy. As I watched
this film, I have no doubt that similar scenarios have played out either in the
public eye like Blagojevich or Watergate, or instances where no arrest were
made. While The Campaign is a comedy, I truly believe that it credibly
demonstrates what elections are like in this country. When candidates run for
political office, their whole lives are investigated and brought out into the
light for the public to review, and make judgment on. For those of us who have
witnessed our fair share of campaigns know that most of it are lies and only
half of what is promised will actually take place, if that. While The Campaign may be making a mockery of our democratic
election process, it does so in a hilarious way that will surely entertain.
Love this movie.
