Winner of Smith Essay Contest, Pat McMahon

The movie Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore truly exemplifies the superficial and ostentatious nature of elections in the modern United States. The movie's tragic plot explores and uncovers the unforgiving, unchanging, and dogmatic political system we have and how its very nature lends to the superiority of the elite.

To begin with, it is vital to look at how Jeff Smith was so much of an underdog simply from the get-go. First of all, his ideas were far too “radical” for his own party to endorse; they subtly and pusillanimously deprecated his campaign by simply attempting to ignore him and endorse other candidates. If he were to pull off a victory in the primaries (Dye 217), the in-party election to decide the candidate to run in the national election, he would far more likely to lose in the general (Dye 217), or national, election than a more moderate democrat; the parties do not want him in the general election because it does not attend to the main party goal: winning elections (Dye 209). If he is less likely to win the general election, than the Democratic Party is less likely to gain that seat in congress; therefore, the party itself loses a small, although certainly not negligible, amount of Federal power. Secondly, Jeff had absolutely no political connections going into his campaign. Without the huge and powerful political ties of the social elite, Jeff had no chance of overcoming the name recognition (Dye 248), the blind tendency for voters to simply cast their ballots for those who have a family background in politics, of Russ Carnahan, coming from a very strong political family in Massachusetts. Because of name recognition, it is very difficult in this time of established political lineages for new names to enter into the ballots; this effectively keeps only the social elites in power and does not allow for changes in the government. Thirdly, campaigns have become such a massive financial burden that Jeff, a young man with weak financial ties and completely devoid of any support from interest groups, would not be able to run campaigns the same way as the social, and generally economic, elites that continually win the elections. This stage is major roadblock for any and all underdogs on the political campaign trail and very few make it past this point; in this situation Jeff was one of very few who broke the political paradigm and attempted grassroots campaigning (class), going door-to-door and personally attempting to gather votes.

The media is another massive factor in the absolute domination of political atmosphere, either inadvertently or aggressively scathingly ripping through the campaigns of the politically unknown. Many times they do not necessarily purposely damage the campaigns of candidates when they report the campaigns by what is known as “horse-race reporting”, where they focus only on how each candidate is doing in the polls and not on their ideology. This can unintentionally hurt the candidates as many voters will not vote for the lesser-known candidates simply because they know that they will not win and will not want to waste their single ballot and, in turn, the possibility for representation in government. This happened in Jeff Smith's case as some voters said that they would vote for him, but they know Carnahan is going to win and therefore would be a waste of their vote. However, many times the media will intentionally degrade or ignore the campaigns of lesser-known candidates, either because of personal or economic support for other candidates or the belief that the political elites should stay in office and should continue to run our government. Many of the media outlets in the movie simply did not want to waste time with Jeff Smith and ignored his campaign completely, preferring instead to simply continue to endorse Carnahan's campaign.

Another massively crippling factor against lesser known candidates is the lack of political pull they possess; any possible supporters to a cause will undoubtedly be pulled more strongly towards the political elites - their endorsement guarantees them more financial and political stability from the government; this is an ideal that is far more appealing than appeasing and empowering unknowns unlikely to win anything. Jeff Smith had been incredibly active in the African-American communities in St. Louis and devoted a large amount of personal time and money to improving them, even establishing a very stable pre-school system; however, when it came time for the election he did not receive much, if any, support from the African-American community because of his political status. By endorsing Russ Carnahan's campaign, who was far more likely to win both the primary and general elections, they had a much better chance of getting representation in general, but also representation in the elites of society. As they had very little in the ways of economic power, their community was extremely reliant on the elites of society to provide for them; the only way they know they can get that kind of representation is by endorsing the Carnahan campaign rather than that of Jeff Smith's, who was extremely active and supportive in the African-American community and was inarguably a better leader in that situation. Unfortunately, once again, the pull of the political elites is simply too overpowering for even the most charismatic, personable, intelligent, and socially active candidates.

The movie is a dreadful, albeit eye-opening, look into the way our political system actually functions. It is simply a ruse; a disingenuous masquerade for the political machines to continue along with their agendas while allowing the public to believe that elections are something that truly matter and can be won by anyone.