Screen Story #13: "The Candidate"

FADE IN:

We first meet SENATOR SMITH when he is working on Capital Hill to pass a child welfare bill. At a subcommittee hearing, he manages to outwit his opponents through special intelligence supplied by his wife, MRS. SMITH. She acts as a sort of secret agent at the hearings, lurking quietly in the background and picking up information that she relays to the senator in text messages.

It is clear that they have a very special relationship. They aren’t just husband and wife but creative and combat partners. They are in sync with each other in many different ways. The SENATOR is the gregarious member of the team, the one who does most of the talking, while his wife is the brains, who judiciously avoids public attention as she plots the senator’s course of action.

They are so successful in Washington that they take the critical step of seeking his nomination for President.

A vicious primary battle then ensues between the Senator and his arch-rival, SENATOR JONES. SENATOR SMITH has to make sacrifice after sacrifice in his principles to compete with SENATOR JONES. Unfortunately, for every step closer he gets to the nomination, his relationship with his wife gets worse and worse. She continues to support him, but their personal connection gets increasingly tenuous.

Finally, SENATOR JONES gets tripped up by a sex scandal. The nomination is now SENATOR SMITH’s for the taking.

At the national party convention, SENATOR SMITH rises to the podium for his acceptance speech. Ahead of him stands almost unlimited power. The opposing party is very weak, so by winning the nomination, he has almost certainly won the presidency.

At this point, his emotional rapport with his wife has all but collapsed. She is standing behind him, but she is there only as an aide. She continues to believe in what he stands for and the good he can do for the country, but she no longer believes in him personally. She has given him her assurances that she will not seek a divorce and that she will continue to play the part of his wife in public, but their love is all but gone.

SENATOR SMITH begins to give the standard acceptance speech. He thanks all the people who have helped him get this far. He announces his respect for his honorable opponent, and he calls for party unity. He then launches into an unexpected speech about holding onto our humanity, about staying true to what’s really important. There is something more important than power and fame, he says; you have to first be true to yourself.

He then talks about his wife, how she was the true power behind him all along. He was never really more than an actor, he says, but his wife gave him life. Without her, he would be nothing. It sounds heartfelt, but we are skeptical.

“And that is why I cannot accept this nomination,” he says. “The price, for me, is too high.”

He throws all of his support behind SENATOR JONES. He talks about forgiveness and about allowing people the space to make mistakes.

After a stunned silence, the crowd erupts in applause.

---

Posted from Las Vegas. © 2008, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. Also see my other screen stories
Photo: Former New York governor Elliot Spitzer and his wife.

Screen Story #12: "Photo Op"

FADE IN:

Outside the Friendswood Elementary School, somewhere in America, is parked an armada of TV news trucks and vans. Clearly, some sort of big media event is going on inside.

Cut to a first grade classroom. A CONSERVATIVE POLITICIAN is sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, reading a story to the children who are sitting on the floor all around him. Along the edges of the classroom are news reporters, photographers, cameramen and sound technicians. Obviously, this is a contrived photo op where the tough-talking POLITICIAN is trying to show his gentler side.

We hear only the last few lines of the story he is reading. It is a conservative fairy tale based on Little Red Riding Hood. In exaggerated and theatrical speech intended for children, the POLITICIAN reads:

But thanks to his right to keep and bear arms, the Woodsman had a revolver strapped to his hip. He shot the Big Bad Wolf, then with his trusty ax he cut open the wolf’s belly and out popped both Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood. “Oh thank you, Mr. Woodsman!” said Red Riding Hood, “How can we ever repay you?”

“Don’t thank me,” said the Woodsman. “Thank free enterprise.”

Standing discreetly behind the POLITICIAN is his MEDIA HANDLER, who is cringing at all this. He bends over and whispers something in the POLITICIAN’s ear.

The POLITICIAN closes the book. “So that’s the end of the story,” he says. “Do any of you children have any questions?”

Several children raise their hands, and an impromptu news conference follows, with the children asking the questions instead of the reporters.

One little boy asks, “Why did the woodsman have to kill the wolf?”

The POLITICIAN smoothly responds with his official campaign position about getting tough on crime. Although speaking in simplified terms for the young audience, he is obviously playing to the television cameras. “Bad people have to live with the consequences of their actions,” he says.

But the children ask harder and harder questions, and the POLITICIAN quickly loses control of the situation. One child asks: “Why did you cut our school lunch program?” This begins an exchange between the POLITICIAN and the children that gets worse and worse for him. The answers he gives might be appropriate for adults, but they are clearly wrong for children. The children completely disarm the POLITICIAN with the simplicity of their questions, and he sticks his foot in his mouth at every opportunity. He can’t stop the news conference, however, because the cameras are rolling and the kids are asking good questions.

One of the kids reveals that he is being raised by a single mother who doesn’t have enough money for food and clothes. It turns out his father is currently in prison thanks to a previous tough-on-crime measure. Another kid says his parents are drug addicts, but they can’t find treatment, so he is living with his grandmother. A third child, sitting in a tiny wheelchair, says he needs an operation but he can’t have it because his family doesn’t have health insurance. The POLITICIAN responds with the standard conservative line about self-responsibility, even implying that these first graders are responsible for their own upbringing.

The MEDIA HANDLER is horrified and tries to guide the POLITICIAN by whispering advice in his ear, but it does no good. The POLITICIAN obviously has no rapport with children, and everything he says just gets him in bigger and bigger trouble.

At one point, he tells a little girl that if her parents couldn’t support her, they should have put her up for adoption.

The girl starts crying, and soon all the children are crying. The POLITICIAN is completely lost and helpless in dealing with this crisis.

The MEDIA HANDLER has no choice but to step in and end the event. He says that the POLITICIAN has pressing engagements elsewhere.

The POLITICIAN tries his best to wrap things up. He thanks the school district for inviting him here, and most of all he thanks the children’s teacher, Mrs. Johnson. He praises her good work in raising such bright and inquisitive children.

We see Ms. Johnson for the first time, standing on one side of the classroom. She has a devilish smirk on her face. Suddenly, it becomes clear that the POLITICIAN has fallen into a trap set by Mrs. Johnson. Even as he praises the teacher, it dawns on him that he’s been had.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” says one kid, interrupting the POLITICIAN.

“I do, too,” says another.

Losing his composure, the POLITICIAN snaps back, “No on my time, kid!”

The MEDIA HANDLER buries his head in his hands.

Cut to black.

---

Posted from Las Vegas. © 2008, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. Also see my other screen stories
Photo source