Recount: New Docudrama Could Influence Election

[question everything]

Thursday, May. 08, 2008
Recount: New Docudrama Could Influence Election
By James Poniewozik
TIME

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On May 25, an HBO docudrama about the legal-political battle between Bush and Al Gore will remind us of all that again. You might think that HBO would have timed Recount to air around Election Day. As it turns out, the network could not have scheduled the movie better. The Democratic primary, like the Florida election, has turned out close enough that it must be decided by people whom nobody voted for--this time superdelegates, not Supreme Court Justices. With the old electoral wounds being ripped open, here comes Recount like a brimming shaker of salt.

Even if the primary is settled by the time Recount airs (or by the time you read this), some Democrats will feel bitter and cheated and will invoke the powerful language of 2000 all over again. If Barack Obama gets the nomination, the anger will center on the primaries in Michigan and you-know-where. (Democrats! Disenfranchised! In Florida! The blog posts write themselves.) Hillary Clinton's camp has already stepped up the "count every vote" talk. If it's Clinton, the protests will be that, as in 2000--when thousands of black Floridians were struck from voter rolls--African Americans were overruled and the popular-vote leader denied. That there are several competing gauges of legitimacy only makes recriminations more likely.

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Still, Recount portrays Republicans as not so much stealing the election as getting lucky (with the Palm Beach "butterfly" ballot that led seniors to accidentally pick Pat Buchanan over Gore), then aggressively going after the jump ball in the media, the courts and the streets. In Recount, the enemy is often Democrats. Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher (John Hurt), elder statesman of Gore's recount effort, is portrayed as a wet noodle, fretting about honorable compromise while Baker goes to the mattresses. Gore's running mate, Joe Lieberman, hands the Bush team a gift by declaring that challenged military ballots should be counted. With friends like these, who needs Karl Rove?

Seen this way, Recount is more important for what it says about intra-Democratic politics than about the interparty battle. (Bush and Gore appear only in clips, in shots from behind or as off-camera voices.) As Gore's brass-knuckled campaign staff (Spacey as recount captain Ron Klain and Leary as field director Michael Whouley) urge the likes of Christopher to fight GOP fire with fire, you can see the seeds of the schism between netroots activists and Establishment Dems. The activists regard their colleagues as sellouts or wusses, too refined to throw a punch and too concerned about the mainstream media's approbation.

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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1738500,00.html