In the film The American President the very idealized presentation of the office of the presidency, the politics of national elections, and the role of the media seems to reflect the wishful thinking of director Rob Reiner, producer Robert Redford, writer Aaron Sorkin, and the film's principal actors. The filmmakers unambiguously identify the central character President Andrew Shepard (Michael Douglas) as a very liberal Democrat and his probable opponent in the upcoming election, Senator Rumsford (Richard Dreyfuss), embodies all the most cynical aspects of Republican exhortations about "family values" and "character" as election tools. In the idealized world of the film the answer to many of the problems confronting those who wish to govern humanely is for a political leader to have the courage to openly state that the "family values" and "character" claims of the Republicans are a cynical tool used to distract the voters' attention from the genuine issues. They want "crime control," for example, but refuse to acknowledge any need for "gun control."
The plot hinges on the fall and rise of the opinion polls assembled by the President's pollster as they reflect the nation's satisfaction or dissatisfaction based largely, it appears, on his relationship with his "girlfriend," a political lobbyist named Sydney Wade (Annette Bening). At the beginning of the film the President and his staff are jubilant over the 60-plus approval ratings, yet never say what, exactly, has produced this popularity. The romantic affair, however, causes a 20 percent drop in approval which, in today's atmosphere, is hardly explicable but is blamed on the aggressive smearing of the President's values and distorting of Wade's past by Rumsford and the President's refusal to stoop to arguing at Rumsford's level. The key arguments in the film are put forward by the president's speechwriter, Lewis Rothschild (Michael J. Fox), who urges the president to answer ...