Man of the Year – Imagine if Bill Maher or Jon Stewart ran for president of the United States. Next imagine if he won the election. Political satirist Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) runs as an independent candidate against the incumbent Democrat President Kellogg and the Republican opponent Mills, though he’s on the ballot in only 17 states. Neither he nor his manager (Christopher Walken) expect the campaign to be anything more than a means of shaking up the establishment, but the entire country has just gone to an all electronic voting system (no paper-ballot trail) run by the Delacroy Corporation.

Meanwhile, an extremely conscientious software engineer Elinor Green (Laura Linney) has discovered a glitch in the computer voting system and attempts to inform the CEO of Delacroy of her concern that the election results will be seriously skewed. Incredibly Dobbs wins all the states in which he’s entered and the presidency. (No exit-polling data from the media to question the results? No suspicion on the part of the public about a single corporation having complete charge of all the voting machines?) Delacroy’s top management doesn’t want to risk losing their upward momentum in the stock market, so it’s imperative to keep the glitch a secret and let the election remain. Ms Green’s credibility must be undermined.

Nevertheless, Dobbs is a remarkable candidate in many respects. He refuses to raise funds to orchestrate a media campaign, riding a bus across the country to speak his mind in person. He gets his big break when he gets invited (because of strong support from online devotees) to join Kellogg and Mills in the final television debate where he veers from the intended format and dominates the discussion. As president – sounding like a Unity08 Party man – he proposes a cabinet made up of members of both major parties. In the end he ends up on the cover of Time as Man of the Year. Occasionally funny and provocative, but the characterizations are thin.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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