Those of you not in the mood for action vehicles for Christian Slater (that are also action vehicles for actual vehicles), and who have not gotten enough politics on TV already, might want to check out The Return of the War Room on Sundance tonight. A sequel to the renowned documentary about the rapid-response team that helped elect Bill Clinton in 1992, this 90-minute film from Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker takes a look at how campaigns, and the way they are fought in the media, have changed in 16 years.
Or at least it tries to. Relying heavily on interviews with and retrospectives of the Clintonians (and their rivals) from the original War Room—George Stephanopoulos, James Carville, Dee Dee Myers, etc.—the new doc spends a lot of time walking down Memory Lane. If you’re interested in more behind-the-scenes about how Clinton came back in the New Hampshire primary or how Carville and Mary Matalin became an item, the film will not disappoint. Personally, I wish it had spent more time on its other aim, which is to show how ’92-style war rooms have changed—and maybe even been eclipsed—in the Internet era.
Still, even if the references to campaigning today (and the current campaign) are tantalyzing and short, some are fascinating. For instance, whether you think focus-group master Frank Luntz is a genius or the devil incarnate—or both—he gets off some great observations about how audiences and voters respond to nonverbal cues when candidates speak.
We’ve heard a lot in the debates about how, in ’92, Bush sealed his fate when he looked at his watch, but Luntz recalls what was to him a more decisive moment: when Clinton approached a woman who had asked a question about the economy and answered her empathetically. What sold people, Luntz says, was not so much Clinton’s answer as the woman’s response: she silently nodded as he spoke, providing a moment of affirmation that gave voters at home the OK to support Clinton.
Likewise, he says, he was confounded doing a recent focus group, during an Obama speech, to find that his subjects were turning their dials all the way up to positive when Obama was not speaking. The reason: the Obama campaign made sure to seat enthusiastic supporters behind him. His audience seemed so happy, the dial group said, that it made them happy too.
These insights may not always be pretty, but if you’re a politics junkie and want a break from cable news, this War Room is worth a return.