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This year, gouvernor Baxter (Jeffrey Allen) wants to see that a man of
his party will make the run for senate against the dry but competent
& liberal senator Burwell (Robert Swain), so the president has sent
him 3 campaign advisors, Sid, Ed & Chet (Ray Sager, Terrell Cass,
Robert Jolley), who have run many a successful campaign, & have a few
ideas of their own, like letting country singer Hank Jackson (Claude King)
run on their ticket ...
That Jackson does not have the first idea of politics or that he, in
his private life likes to mingle with hippies & smooke the occasional
reefer doesn't matter, to the audience he's the cleancut all-American boy
who can give simple answers to complex questions - even if the answers do
originate 100 percent from his campaign managers, but People don't vote
for issues. Soon Jackson finds himself promoting right-wing ideas
& opposing the (rightful) strikers of the rent-strike who protest for
betterliving conditions in their appartments should they be expected to
pay their rents. & instead of discussing the topic in one of his
tv-specials he every now & again breaks into a song (written by his
campaign managers). Before long, the surveys have Jackson in the lead ...
His girlfriend Tammy (Ronna Riddle) grows increasingly disappointed
with him, as he betrays everything he has formerly believed in, breaks up
with him & joins the rent strikers ... until one night leaving the
strikers she is brutally beaten up & raped. Sid, Ed & Chet see
this as a great opportunity to use in their campaign for Jackson (even if
it wasn't the rent strikers but a bunch of conservatives who attacked her
& who might be on the campaigns payroll), but finally Jackson sees
through their unscrupulous methods of fabricating politics & throws
them out. He continues campaigning on his own though, but now teams up
with the stirikers & tries to win with his own liberal ideas ... but
tthe voters soon have no idea of what Jackson might really stand for &
he loses ...
For the campaigners though it was just another job, & they might
meet again at the next presidential elections - but possibly on opposite
sides.
A political satire done the exploitation movie way, painted in broad
strokes, with a bunch of cheap gags thrown in but also the occasional
moment of greatness, & more than a grain of truth worked into the
story. Atually the film has amazing parallels to the 2004 American
presidential elections, with John Kerry, the dry but competent liberal
running against George W.Bush, who has little ideas of politics but gives
simple answers to complex questions, even if his answers are mostly wrong -
unfortunately though, life is not a film & George W.Bush did not see
the light before it was too late ... and even worse, he got elected too ...
In 1991, actor Tim Robbins made his directorial debut with the
excellent political satire Bob Roberts, a story about a
conservative countrysinger running for office by giving simple answers
to complex questions. & while Bob Roberts is no doubt more
subtle & more sophisticated than Year of the Yahoo, the
similarities between the 2 movies do not end here & are too close for
coincidence.
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