It’s a galling and provocative experience to viewers of any political persuasion, and a reminder to the left of how easily idealism can run amok.
The Carville boys were hired by Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, a.k.a. ‘‘Goni,’’ a patrician Bolivian businessman who served a rough term as Bolivia’s president in the mid-’90s. Goni’s legacy was an unsuccessful program of ‘‘capitalization’’ (i.e., he welcomed foreign investment and watched foreigners get all the jobs).
By 2002, the time of filming, unemployment is through the roof and rural campesinos are agitating for political representation. Goni is old news and his poll numbers are dismal. Enter Jeremy Rosner, Greenberg Carville Shrum’s point man in Bolivia, an articulate manipulator of mass moods (and a fellow who bears an uncanny resemblance to Seth Meyers of ‘‘Saturday Night Live’’ — reality parodies itself here better than any comic could).
Rosner and his minions hold focus groups, print bar charts, and quickly decide on Goni’s campaign theme: crisis. The country’s falling apart, so who will you turn to? The candidate’s longtime campaign manager, Carlos Morales, has his own polls and research, but they’re arrogantly shunted aside.
It’s an uphill battle, nevertheless. ‘‘Over half the electorate really can’t stand you guys,’’ admits one of the consultants.
Against Goni are Evo Morales, a socialist firebrand who represents the country’s coca growers but who denies he’s a drug lord or a terrorist, and Cochabamba mayor Manfred Reyes Villa, a thoughtful pragmatist with a charismatic head of hair. Villa leads in the polls, so Rosner and company decide he must be taken down.
