Hollywood question of the day: Do Republicans run nastier campaigns than Democrats?

Karl Rove and Lee Atwater, the two dark wizards of hardball politics, have already been the subject of documentaries detailing all of their shrewd election strategies and dirty tricks. Now writer-director Billy Ray, who directed the compelling film "Shattered Glass," has a deal with Fox Searchlight to make a film about Allen Raymond, the GOP political operative who actually went to jail after being convicted of conspiracy charges after jamming the phones at Democratic headquarters in the middle of a hotly contested 2002 New Hampshire senatorial race. (The Democratic candidate lost by roughly 20,000 votes.)

Ray has written a script based on Raymond's recently published memoir, "How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative." He's beginning the process of casting the film, working with a contingent of producers who include Generate partner Pete Aronson, who was Raymond's college roommate and encouraged Raymond to write about his experiences. I immediately called up Ray, because if his take on political chicanery is half as fascinating as "Shattered Glass' " portrait of media fabrication, then we might be in for quite a ride.

One thing that fascinated me about Raymond's story is that, like Atwater, he was a mercenary. As  "Boogieman," the new Atwater documentary reveals, Atwater wasn't a die-hard conservative--he turned to Republican causes early on because in the South in the 1960s, the GOP was the party out of power, offering more opportunities for an ambitious young operative; likewise with Raymond, who came from a family of Democrats. "He had no particular political leanings," says Ray. "It was pure ambition. The job and the money was with the Republicans, so that's where he went. He wasn't a holy warrior, just a bright, extremely competitive guy who wanted to climb the corporate ladder."

If you think about it, it's a universal movie character, whether it's Charlie Sheen in "Wall Street" or Ray Liotta in "GoodFellas" or, to use Ray's example, Dustin Hoffman in "Kramer vs. Kramer." "He's a guy whose lost his moral rudder," says Ray. "In my script, while the narrative engine is the world of politics, the pulse of the movie is personal. This is a guy who loses his family and the only way to get them back is by regaining his integrity."

It was Atwater who invented the black art of push polling. Raymond took that deception one step further. When he wanted to influence voters in white ethnic neighborhoods of New Jersey, Raymond would hire an African American voice actor, get him to use his most thuggish ghetto voice and record phone messages, pretending to be a Democratic operative trying to get voters to support a Democratic candidate while, of course, preying on the bias of the person receiving the call. Ray says John McCain is guilty of similar tactics, citing his recent ads portraying Barack Obama's support of a bill educating youngsters on dealing with sexual predators as actually touting sex education for toddlers.

I know what my conservative friends would say: When Hollywood tells a story about campaign dirty tricks, why is it always the Republicans who are always at fault? Sure, the Democrats have gone down to defeat again and again with weak-kneed softies like Bob Shrum running their campaigns, but don't the Democrats play hardball too? Isn't this yet another example of Hollywood bias? Ray didn't flinch. "That's a completely fair criticism," he says. "There have definitely been more movies made about Republican corruption than Democratic corruption. But based on my research and experience, Republicans do it more, do it more effectively and do it without conscience." Why? "Because they believe that their cause is so just that, in a larger sense, any attempt to secure or hold onto power is justified."

Ray insists his script is fair-minded. "I did the reporting. I haven't embellished or manufactured anything. I'm just telling the story and I'll let people judge for themselves." The movie hopes to start production next year, but with a hotly contested election in its final days, I'd be eager to hear your take on the question: Is Hollywood biased against Republicans or do they just step over the line more often than Democrats?   

Photo of Billy Ray by Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Dan]

The Democrats have their fair share of shameful practices. On the other hand, let's not forget what party Richard Nixon was a card-carrying member of.

Oh, and while we're at it, what party John F. Kennedy was in. Between "An American Carol" and a few other things I've seen, there's been this sickening attempt by some conservatives to coopt Kennedy as one of their own. HELL NO. Sit down and shut up, you do not get to rewrite history to feel better about yourself.

[Undecided]

Fair enough. Any kind of crooked techniques that are employed to try to "get out the vote" certainly deserve the under-the-microscope treatment. Which is why I'm sure some fair-minded scriptwriter in Hollywood is right now working furiously on a similar project about ACORN and its highly unsavory, fraudulent, downright illegal voter registration tactics, right? Now there are some "dirty tricks" for you. Yet somehow I don't think we'll hear much about this murky issue from Hollywood.

[Letty Guerra]

Democrats are much dirtier and cheat like hec in elections. They even rip up one of their own, Hilary, so long as they get their way.

They call a woman that just came on the political scene the 'C' word and make up stories about racism when there isn't anything racist being said.

I hope Obama wins so that we can finaly see people on their knees crying to GOD for help.

Obama will be completing Jimmy Carters 2nd term. In fact he sounds just like him asking for Americans to sacrifice so that he doesn't have to solve any problems.. Maybe we will get another Ronald Reagan after Obama and the democrat senate & congress are through turning our country into the USSR II.

Another good thing that will happen is that Hilary's political career will be over and hopefuly we will see the last of her as well. 4 years is a small price to pay to make sure the Clintons dont come back.

This country is doomed! Ever since the 1960's the quality of life has erroded, and that has nothing to do with personal wealth. It has to do with personal safety, fairness and the law. Have you ever wondered why people are so nostalgic for the 1950's?

I guess it's because it's the last time there was law and order, personal safety and common courtesy & manners.

There's no hope for this country and with Obama it's just going downhill on Turbo.

There have never really been enough true conservatives to turn this country around - so does it matter who is President anyway? Republicans have been kissing the asses of liberals and spending just like them.

These RINO"s are just riding the coattails of people like Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. The republican party has crap people, except Sarah Palin, too.

Forget it! This USA experiment is over and it has failed!!!

[cud]

The dems if anything do it more...

They just do it one to one instead of one to many... the union thug intimidating people in the lunchroom, the poll worker manipulating ballots, the acorn folks registering dead people, etc...

the rare "republican" (i note that both the cases here suggest the guy was just in it for power that he wasn't a "true beliver") that does these sorts of things does it for the most part alone and does it in a big easy to catch them in way.

The "republicans" that do this get in general no protection from the rest of the party, but the small time crooks on the democrat side do, for example, acorn might take a hit, but the people actually doing the crime in the streets will never be held liable.

basically they go about it differently, the dems run a racket top to bottom, the gop has a few masterminds.

[Rick]

Letty Guerra,

Wow, you really are a right wingnut. Great post, it just affirms to NORMAL Americans what the right wing base is thinking and how much they actually hate this country. And Palin talks about Pro-American parts of this country. You definitely are not part of the Pro-American parts. Your negativity and bias are the reason this country is divided. You are probably a typical older racist white american who longs for the 50s when it was ok to be openly racist. Sickening.

[Gwen Lebec]

When Dems are losers they are either weak, dumb, or too touchy feely "trying to help others" - OR they are trying to get laid and feel important. When Reps are losers they are corrupt and they are after big money for themselves and their buddies, publically attacking behavior they participate in privately (self hatred?), or letting loose with deep seated anger and hatred (at "others" i.e. gays, minorities, other countries, other religions). Reps do campaign dirtier because they have more at stake. It's either the money and power they need to grab or the religious fury they need to unleash. Either way, it is a more powerful force than the Dems "let's play nice" and "Let's all get along" BS. Dems are way too worried about someone in their social circle disapproving of them to do anything really nasty and power grabbing. So they let Reps run over them rather than "look bad." Even if the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

[Chris]

Just because Republicans and conservatives are losing power that automatically means that "This USA experiment is over and it has failed!!!"?

No, it just means that the power is going back to the people, at least for awhile until our American populace gets complacent and doesn't follow things too closely--primed for another conservative to come along and take advantage of people's ignorance.

I truly hope this isn't the case, especially since Barack wants to push education, big time. I personally want a better-educated American population. I'm so over uneducated people being responsible for appointing people into power who take advantage of them. It's gotten really old.

[Interested Canadian]

Chris:

I completely agree, I find it a trend that well educated people more often then not vote for a centerist or left leaning candidates, whilst the undereducated tend towards a right wing candidate. The right has compelling arguments if you are unable to think critically about what is really being said.

This is not to say that all right wing voters are undereducated, there are many educated conservatives out there, and I completely respect that. If I am discussing politics, and a person names a specific policy or decision that a right wing candidate would pursue they agree with, I will respect it. The unfortunate reality is that the rhetoric spewed by the right has a much bigger impact on the undereducated, I find it is mostly due to the right mixing God in with message.

Take Letty's post above for example. I see not one mention of any specific instance or policy that would indicate the Dem's 'cheat like hec' or indicate how Obama will turn the USA into 'USSR II'. It is full of fear and hate and anger, yet devoid of critical thought, or suggestion of how the USA could be turned around with enough 'true conservatives'.

I find the same in my country, our election just gave a stronger minority government (think President + Senate but not holding a majority in congress) to our own version of the republicans. The election was essentially bought with a 2c cut in gas taxes, and a 2% reduction in consumption tax, while the liberal (democrat) party ran on a platform of shifting 2% income tax to carbon tax.