Campaigning at Its Finest
Joshua Michael Stern is a relatively new director in the world of feature films, with
Swing Vote being his most current film, he is also known for movies such as
Neverwas and The Amityville Horror. He comes from a family who comes from
directors and show business creators, his grandfather, Jules Green, was the original
executive producer of The Tonight Show, his grandmother was a studio executive and
discovered British talent and brought it to America (Stern, Richman).
Swing Vote takes place in election time in a small town of Texico, New Mexico,
where we are introduced to the main character, played by Kevin Costner, Bud. He is
a recently let off slob with a very proactive daughter, Molly, who runs the household.
On Election day Molly ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
and Charles T. Manatt, former Republican and Democratic party chairmen,
respectively said, ...we, as former chairmen of the Republican and Democratic
parties, can attest that politicians themselves don t like the current situation
(Clark). If the politicians who hire these men don t even like the way they run
things, then how do they keep finding work? There are two reasons, they get
results, and the fact that image means more now than it has ever had before. Victor
Kamber, the President of the Kamber Group, a public relations firm in Washington
D.C., says that ...one reason they are so much a part of the story now is that we
live in an age of news. Decades ago, the TV news used to be a half hour or an hour,
counting national and local, but today there are two and three hours of time to fill
with features, he notes (Clark).
The tactics that the campaign consultants use are often drawn into question, including
in Swing Vote, when the incumbent President Boone s consultant, Marty, tells him
to offer Bud a job as a lobbyist in Washington in order to win his vote, citing that the
everyday man likes him, and that it would soften the image of lobbyists. President
Boone questions Marty after hearing this idea, to which he replies, We re doing what
we always do, dancing the dance, courting the voters. Boone asks his Marty what