Head of State: Difference between revisions

Well, we should probably be a little more comprehensive than that. The party candidates (Which party? [[No Party Given|Who knows]]) for president and vice-president were killed when [[Contrived Coincidence|their planes crashed into each other]]. Senator Bill Arnot (James Rebhorn), believing they have no chance of winning since the other party's candidate is unbeatable (Having been vice-president for eight years, a Vietnam War veteran, ''and'' being Sharon Stone's cousin), decides to set his party up as next election's favorite. He decides to put Mays Gilliam (Chris Rock), a black alderman of the 9th Ward in Washington D.C., on the ticket. The idea is that Mays will garner them goodwill among the minority voters of America, so that when the next election comes they will be predisposed to vote for whoever the party has nominated, which Arnot plans to be himself. Unfortunately, once Mays decides to run things his way, he does do well. [[Gone Horribly Right|Too well.]] So well that it looks like he has a legitimate chance of winning, and even if he fails, he will do well enough to be nominated again for the next election instead of Arnot. Much of what follows is Arnot trying to undermine Mays while presidential favorite Brian Lewis (Nick Searcy) underestimates Mays to the very end.

 

* [[Attack of the Political Ad]]: Gilliam refuses to run attack ads on Lewis. Not because he has a moral compunction against them (Although he does), but because he just does not think they do any good because ''everybody'' runs attack ads. He points out that, in [[Bugs Bunny]] cartoons, what hurt Elmer Fudd the most was not when Bugs would attack him directly, but when he would ''kiss'' him. So, Gilliam runs an ad campaign of people professing their support for Lewis: People like members of the KKK, [[Osama Bin Laden]] and others.

* [[Be Yourself]]: Mayes' campaign takes off after he stops trying to be what is expected of him and runs the campaign his way. It helps that the original campaign was deliberately engineered to ''not'' be successful.