Trama

A man joins the political campaign of a smooth-operator candidate for President of the United States of America.

Jack Stanton is running for president. The election is seen through the eyes of young Henry Burton. Along the way Stanton must deal with a sex scandal.—Anonymous

This work is the barely fictionalized account of candidate Bill Clinton in 1992 via the character southern Governor Jack Stanton (John Travolta). Joe Klein joined Newsweek as a political reporter and columnist during the 1992 U.S. Presidential race, and followed then-candidate Bill Clinton on the road. As such, Klein dutifully conveys the youthful exuberance for a new candidate, along with the sense of awe at his determination, drive, and intelligence. All along, he also displays the shocking lack of personal morals of a "natural" candidate for the office. Further, he shows the inner deal-making that everyone connected with the campaign makes to achieve the vision with which he or she started, no matter how ugly the cheating, talented candidate gets on his road to the election. Klein tells the story from the first person perspective of a sophomorish campaign manager, Henry Burton (Adrian Lester), who just happens to be a grandson of a black civil rights leader. They join the southern Governor at a talk given on adult education, in which Governor Stanton cries as he tells the students how they were braver than his uncle - a World War II veteran that earned the Medal of Honor, but went home and never took a job because he was too embarrassed to tell anyone he was illiterate. We next find out this story is not true. Despite this, Burton decides to join the campaign, and works many of the standard issues - such as fighting off scurrilous attacks by opposing candidates, and captured and doctored cell phone conversations, et cetera. Burton walks into the campaign headquarters (a hotel suite) to find the Governor coming out of a bedroom not completely dressed, and a disheveled librarian they had just met at a school they had attended. Of course, Susan Stanton (Dame Emma Thompson), the Governor's wife, is nowhere to be found. The team flies to another destination to meet up with Mrs. Stanton, as she has been campaigning for her husband among their party elite in that state. Burton is eventually introduced to Libby Holden (Kathy Bates), whose job is to defend the President by combating the attacks from all comers. She does so with ruthless abandon, but also with a strict moral code: There apparently is something noble about stopping the attacks of others, but it is almost reprehensible about digging up the dirt on others - essentially attacking them first. We come to know that Governor Stanton is a philanderer of extraordinary magnitude, but an inspired genius at politics. Unfortunately, this extends to sleeping with a seventeen-year-old babysitter, the librarian they just recently met, a long-term affair with another woman, and the list goes on.

Henry Burton (Adrian Lester) is a young African-American political idealist and grandson of a civil rights leader who is recruited to join the campaign of Jack Stanton (John Travolta), a charismatic governor of an unnamed US state in the Deep South who is trying to win the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. In the opening scenes, Henry is impressed by Stanton's genuine warmth and empathy with people when he accompanies Stanton on a humane tour of a school for adult education for illiterate adults. Henry soon joins Stanton's inner circle of political advisers whom include: Stanton's formidable Midwestern-born wife, Susan Stanton (Emma Thompson); the ruthless, redneck political strategist Richard Jemmons (Billy Bob Thornton); intelligent and attractive spokeswoman Daisy Green (Maura Tierney), whom Henry hooks up with at one point in the film; and the sly political operator Howard Ferguson (Paul Guilfoyle) as they journey to New Hampshire, the first state to hold a presidential primary.

After Stanton completes an impressive debate performance against his Democratic rivals, Henry's ex-girlfriend shows up to question Stanton about a past arrest as a teenage for an anti-war protest during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. In addition it's revealed that Stanton called a U.S. senator to help him get released then Stanton persuaded the mayor of Chicago to have his police record expunged. The team becomes worried that Stanton's past indiscretions may be used against him by the press and his political opponents. Henry is further unnerved by Stanton's womanizing when he witnesses the after-effects of Stanton seducing a timid school librarian named Miss Walsh (Allison Janney) during the opening scenes.

Henry and his team hire Jack and Susan's old friend, the tough but unbalanced Libby Holden (Kathy Bates), to investigate allegations that could be used by Stanton's political opponents to undermine his candidacy such as Stanton's notorious womanizing. One of Stanton's mistresses and Susan's hairdresser, Cashmere McLeod (Gia Carides), comes forward claiming to have had an on-off affair with Jack Stanton for 12-years and produces secret audio taped conversations between them to prove they had an affair. Henry discovers that the tapes have been doctored, so Libby tracks down the man responsible for the tapes and forces him at gunpoint to confess his guilt in a signed letter to the American public.

A little later, campaign is then rocked by another fresh allegation when Stanton's old friend, "Big Willie" McCollister (Tommy Hollis) approaches Henry to tell him that his 17-year-old daughter Loretta (who worked for the Stantons as a babysitter) is pregnant and that Stanton is the father. Henry and Howard tell Willie he must allow his daughter to undergo an amniocentesis to determine paternity. Although they convince Willie to remain silent on the issue, Henry is nonetheless sickened and disillusioned with the experience and about Jack Stanton in general

Realizing the campaign is falling behind in the polls, Stanton's team adopt a new strategy. Stanton begins going on the offensive by attacking his nearest rival, Senator Lawrence Harris (Kevin Cooney) for casting anti-Israel votes and favoring cuts in Social Security and Medicare. Harris confronts Stanton during a radio talk show in Florida but suffers a heart attack during the encounter, and another one in the hospital as well. Due to this medical setback, Harris subsequently withdraws from the race, and is replaced by his friend, former Florida governor Fred Picker (Larry Hagman). Picker's wholesome, straight-talking image proves an immediate threat to the Stanton campaign.

Jack and Susan send Henry and Libby on an opposition research mission on Picker's past. They discover from his ex-brother-in-law, Eduardo Reyes (Tony Shalhoub), that Picker had a cocaine addiction as governor, which led to the disintegration of his first marriage. They also meet with Picker's cocaine supplier Lorenzo Delgado (John Vargas), with whom Picker had a homosexual affair. Not expecting the information to ever be used, Libby and Henry share their findings with Jack and Susan, but are dismayed when they both decide to leak the information to the press. Libby says that if Jack does so, she will reveal that he tampered with the results of the paternity test, proving that he slept with Willie's daughter.

After a talk with Henry, Libby gives him the incriminating files about Picker's past, and later commits suicide the next day by shooting herself in her parked car after she realizes she spent her life idealizing Jack and Susan only to learn how flawed they truly are. Racked with guilt over Libby's death, Stanton takes the incriminating information to Picker, and apologizes for seeking it out. Picker admits to his past indiscretions, and agrees to withdraw from the race and to endorse Stanton. Afterwords, Henry intends to quit the campaign, admitting he has become deeply disillusioned with the whole political process. Stanton begs Henry to reconsider, persuading him that the two of them can make history and they might have a chance at winning.

In the final scene, set a few months later, President Jack Stanton is dancing at the Inaugural Ball with First Lady, Susan at the White House. He shakes the hands of all his campaign staff, the last of whom is Henry.