Kerry's not- so-amazing race, on film
By Lloyd Grove
I hear that John Kerry loyalists are kicking themselves for cooperating last year with filmmaker Steve Rosenbaum on "Inside the Bubble," a potentially devastating behind-the-scenes look at the Massachusetts senator's failed presidential campaign.
I'm also told that Hillary Clinton partisans are licking their chops to see the film, which "could end up being the silver bullet that kills Kerry's presidential chances for 2008," says a Lowdown spy.
Kerry spinmeister David Wade - one of the senior staffers who allowed Rosenbaum to film his private moments - tried to dismiss Rosenbaum's effort as "a childish home movie destined to be forgotten."
Wade E-mailed me: "The 20 poor souls subjected to this movie will be reaching for caffeine and begging for old Lamar Alexander tapes on C-Span 2. Michael Moore has nothing to fear. I think the working title was 'The Snore Room.'"
But people who've screened the documentary say it's compelling and revealing.
It features, among other not-ready-for-prime-time moments, Clinton scowling and rolling her eyes over an apparent Kerry gaffe during a presidential debate; Kerry pretending to interview himself and babbling in Italian while waiting for a real interview to begin; Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) cursing at reporters during a campaign stop, and Kerry message guru Robert Shrum confidently declaring a few days before the 2004 election: "Zogby [a prominent pollster] just announced who's gonna win. Us!"
Shrum told me he personally didn't cooperate with the movie, which captures him on camera only a couple of times.
Asked if he plans to see it, he answered: "Absolutely not."
As for media critic Michael Wolff - who severely slags off the Kerryites at regular intervals - "I refused to be interviewed by [Rosenbaum], even though at one point he called me from his bespoke tailor."
A press release claims the movie - which won't be shown publicly until Thursday - "turns a harsh but deeply revealing mirror on the campaign ... a disorganized, contentious, self-absorbed team that thought they could win by 'not making mistakes,' and keeping their candidate in the public eye without clarifying a position on anything."
Director Rosenbaum, meanwhile, told me: "I'm a lifelong Democrat and I supported Kerry. I think people will see the film as fair, and maybe searing."
nydailynews.com |
