"Our Brand is Crisis"

Last month, I rented from my fabulous library the documentary "Our Brand is Crisis." It chronicles the 2002 Bolivian presidential election, in which candidate Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada hires the Washington political consulting firm Greenberg, Carville and Shrum (as in famed and now-semi-retired Democratic strategists James Carville and Robert Shrum) about three months before election day to turn around a campaign that's dead last. Improbably, Goni, who had also been president from 1993-1997, wins with 22 percent of the popular vote -- got to love governing by coalition! A year later, he has to flee the country when the capital La Paz becomes a riot zone and about 60 people are killed. (In fact, a classmate of mine was studying in the country at the time and had to be flown out for a few weeks.)

The movie is fascinating because it doesn't take the easy route by distorting everything and making the strategists appear "evil." (Carville only makes a cameo and Shrum doesn't appear; it's actually a consultant named Jeremy Rosner who's the protagonist.) There's no overt implication that these consultants are "the 21st-century version of colonialists, imposing America's will on a depressed country that can only find its voice and success by being led by its own people." It doesn't appear to be heavily edited to fit the storyline the director, Rachel Boynton, wanted, either. It works so well because the clear fault lines of it all emerge naturally. It's suspensful, with a hint of Greek tragedy because even if you don't follow international affairs and are unaware of the ending, you realize how it's going to end.

And as a bonus, it's fun for me the reporter to see one of the lesser consultants tell Goni never to answer a reporter's question directly. He says something like "They want cheese, but you are only going to give them soup. No matter what, quickly return to what you want to talk about." At least it's good to see that out in the open. As a double-bonus, Tad Devine, the consultant with the best name ever, makes an appearance filming TV spots.

The documentary is most illuminating, however, for its foreshadowing of the Clinton-Obama race. Goni is Clinton: Both are older politicians who rose to prominence in the 1990s; lead their country's traditionally liberal parties but believe a friendly free market is the best way to enrich us (Goni brought in Jeffrey Sachs in his first term), which, yes, I agree with, I'm not a socialist or anything; are stilted and generally unpersonable on the stump; will change quickly and often to fit the most recent polls and focus groups; try to embrace "change" when it's clear that is the political theme carrying the day by saying they have change, high-level experience and learned a little from their past mistakes, even if they don't really believe that; and try to sow doubts about the leading opposing candidate while not publicly appearing to be running a harsh, negative campaign. (In the documentary, Rosner even says it's clear Goni's top rival, Cochabamba Mayor Manfred Reyes Villa, the "change candidate," is what the country should want [and probably needs], but all Goni's campaign is doing is "move the needle a little about this guy's background with some vaguely negative advertising" -- and it works). And most importantly: both lost. Unfortunately, Bolivia had to go through a riot for Goni to lose, though it seemed until a couple days ago Clinton might not have the humility or rationale to realize an end-game, requiring some drastic but non-violent action.

I'd wanted to post about this for a month, though my frittering seems to have made the post timely again, with Clinton conceding tomorrow. What she and Goni prove is when a country wants "change" -- whatever that may mean -- it will realize it and no amount of establishment CW will prevent it from happening.

Obama should not pick Clinton as his running mate. Even though she could be the country's first female vice president, joining its first black president, she totally negates the theme of "change" Obama has spent the past 18 months building. Clinton, anywhere on the ticket, returns us to 1997 (not that it's a terrible place to be, with the economic prosperity and Yo La Tengo releasing "I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One", and all), and everything about politics (life too?) should be about using the past as a stepping stone to make the future better, not recreating it. And Clinton would probably pull a Cheney and (try to) hijack the presidency.

But then, Obama can't choose a woman as his partner because every Clinton supporter will scream bloody murder about the most-qualified woman being overlooked and mistreated and probably not even cast votes for him. So, who's left? Bloomberg. He's Jewish, short and doesn't look or sound like a politician; a billionaire but self-made; and most importantly, whereas Obama is a liberal wolf in independent sheep skin, Bloomberg says he transcends partisanship and 20th-century party/policy lines and actually does it. He's "change."

Really, I just want to see Bloomberg running for something in the White House so I have a reason to quit my job.