Obama, the Movies
One year after his election, two film projects and a new book ask if he can live up to the memories of his campaign.
A year after he was elected, President Barack Obama faces a stern test: living up to the memories of his own campaign. Two movies and a book out this week recount that saga and implicitly pose some questions: Whatever happened to the guy who seemed so dazzling, confident, and convincing? Why has a campaign so laser-focused become a presidency that sometimes seems all but overrun by its own ambitious agenda? And did we really know the candidate we thought we saw? (Click here to follow Howard Fineman).(Article continued below...)
HBO's documentary By the Peoplemakes its debut Tuesday night. It offers two hours of behind-the-scenes footage of Obama's crusade, from its earliest moments in Iowa to the final victory suite. The candidate throughout is ice cool (but for one teary moment); his staff is meticulous and driven (but in a good way); the young volunteers are inspired and inspiring.
The laudatory if unsurprising portrait is matched in book form by the manager of that campaign, David Plouffe. He is out with The Audacity to Win. It, too, portrays a candidate as discerning and in charge. Obama, in Plouffe's narrative, distances himself from the ravings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright by calmly—and quickly—writing a speech on the history of race.
The third part of this coincidental triple bill is Poliwood, a contemplative documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Barry Levinson. It airs on Showtime, starting Monday. It features no inside access, and instead depicts Obama's mastery of image making, and wonders aloud about the process that led to his victory. Following a theme he explored in the movie Wag the Dog, Levinson muses on-camera that celebrity, television, and politics conspire to confect candidates whose real qualities we can never know. "They've blurred the lines between truth and reality," he says. In politics "you can create a character just like you create a character in a movie … It's all theater."
Maybe so, but the Obama portrayed in HBO's By the People seemed genuine enough to me, and I have covered the man since he arrived in the U.S. Senate in 2005. The film, shot by the indefatigable team of Amy Rice and Alicia Sams, shows a cool customer, and, so far as I know, he is. Their access was not total. Perhaps there were moments of closed-door panic, anger, and confusion. If so, we don't ever see them.
But the very smoothness of the campaign makes you wonder whether that same confidence and focus prevails now, in the Oval Office. If a campaign is checkers, running the country is three-dimensional chess. As ubiquitous and ambitious as the president is, he doesn't exude quite the sense of command that he did in that nearly perfectly run campaign. Maybe the campaign itself magnified his best qualities and obscured others: a tendency perhaps to overthink, or overeach, or overdo; to regard his mere presence as the Answer.
Obama's campaign in many ways was about him, and little else. He was "the change," even though he said "we" were the change. And that was, at the time, an attractive, compelling narrative. His personal story was an inspiring one; his campaign became a positive narrative of a positive narrative. "It's all about storytelling," Levinson says on camera in his own film, which was made in conjunction with the Creative Coalition. "If you find the right way to sell the story—that becomes the story." Levinson says this as his film shows footage of Obama and his family on the Roman-style stage of the Denver convention.
At another point, a CNN marketing expert praises the campaign's "design and branding." The savvy Obama operation, he says, used icons, type fonts, and merchandise that "young, enthusiastic persons would want to wear on their heads or on their T shirts." It was a campaign as fashion statement: Obama the brand.
One year later, we are way beyond the T-shirt stage. The two documentaries are worth watching in tandem. One is a reminder of the hope Obama generated; the other is a reminder that there are no sure things in life, especially in politics.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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