"
Our Brand is Crisis" is a fascinating documentary about
American political consultants' ---
Greenberg Carville Shrum -- involvement in the
Bolivian election in 2002. I saw it tonight in
Santa Monica.
The
American consultants worked for "
Gino," a former President of
Bolivia in the 90s seeking a return to office. They ran a campaign based on the theme
Bolivia was "in crisis" and
Gino was the candidate to get the country through the crisis.
I suppose what happened falls under the category of "be careful what you wish for" because
Gino barely won the election and the "crisis" continued to grow to the point where he was forced to resign and flee the country.
Ultimately
Evo Morales -- the first campesino to be President of
Bolivia -- took office. He's been a major thorn in the
Bush Administration's side in
Latin America. He's also received notice for refusing to wear a tie in office, instead sticking to a simple striped sweater.
The
American Ambassador to
Bolivia comes off looking like a fool for hot-footing it into the 2002 election by comparing
Morales to
Osama bin Laden.
I thought the
American political consultants, including
James Carville, seemed like pretty reasonable guys in the film. But perhaps I'm a little biased -- the guy sitting behind me actually cussed out one of the consultants near the end of the movie.
The footage of political rallies in
Bolivia was very impressive. Thousands and thousands of people waving rally flags and chanting, "si, se puede." Although I suppose that could have been filmed in
downtown Los Angeles -- but that's a whole different topic.
