I know everything about campaigns. Well...I like to believe that I do. It hurts me, literally pains me, to hear anyone try to tell me how campaigns are run, especially if I think they don't know what they're talking about or worse, if I think they don't know that I do. I recognize this is mostly a "me" problem and one I need to work on. I held my kept my hand down in class when EMILY's List was described as a bi-partisan organization. When a classmate declare that field organizers don't get health insurance because she had worked on a campaign for two weeks, I held my tongue. And I pep-talk myself through Campaign Management class because, my Professor (typical cocky political consultant that he is) actually does know more than me and, well, I knew what I was getting into when I signed up for a class called "Campaign Management." Worst of all, I need to remind myself that just because someone's experience is different from mine (ahem, OFA), doesn't mean it's invalid. But this, this I will not abide.
Battleground, is a Hulu original sitcom about people on the "front lines" of a campaign. Long have I waited for a television show that romanticizes what I do, to field questions about my job much the way my laywer friends do when I watch an episode of Law and Order, but this one gets it (almost) all wrong. Maybe I was so disappointed because there was so much potential to help fill he gaping hole left in my heart, but mostly it was just painful. To keep you from experiencing similar pain, here's the rundown.
My first impression about ten seconds into the pilot is "why are all these people so good looking?" Forget Campaign Goggles, which by the way, is a real phenomenon, it's TV so in general people will be more attractive, but the staff is dressed up like it's a business office. Why are so many people wearing suits? Okay, it's election night...so why doesn't anyone look disheveled?
The real breaking point for me comes when a volunteer, Ben, shows up and is immediately ridiculed by the candidate's adult stepson and made to stand in the parking lot of the campaign office to reserve his parking space. Next, our volunteer encounters the campaign manager, Tak, who is visibly annoyed by him. In fact he only allows Ben, who has moved to capital just to help out with the race, to participate in the campaign when he reveals that he is "Julie Werner's brother" a name that we are lead to believe has some nostalgic significance for Tak. A volunteer comes into the office and is openly mocked and almost rejected? If I were the Field Director on the race, fire would be shooting out my ears at this point. Of course, I WOULDN'T be the Field Director because they have no discernible field program, or finance director or staff beyond five people even though the series claims that they are running a competitive if underdog campaign one month out. So obviously Ben is not making phone calls. He is following around the campaign manager, who, wouldn't ya know it, adopts Ben's strategic suggestion of tricking the other side into believing that their candidate won't show up for a debate...like he did in a fight in middle school. I'll forgive this kind of plot point of West Wing, because you know, it's West Wing, but not of you sir.
Battleground left me wanting to run a serious GOTV campaign,literally, GET OUT OF MY TV.
