Faucheaux -Ides of March

In The Ides Of March, our main character, Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) is a deputy campaign manager for Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney) who is sitting pretty for the Presidency in the midst of the Ohio primary campaign. Stephen is a fresh face in the business of politics, he is idealistic, somewhat naive, and extremely good at his job. So good in fact, that the opposing candidate's campaign manager, Tom (Paul Giamatti) asks to meet with Stephen and offers him a job on his staff. Stephen neglects to tell his boss, Paul (Philip Seymour Hoffman) about the meeting until it is too late. Paul leaks the info about the meeting to Ida, a journalist for the New York Times, who tries to blackmail Stephen for a quote on the story. Stephen also uncovers a dirty little secret of the Governor’s that could sink his political career; he cheated on his wife by sleeping with an intern named Molly. Molly (Evan Rachel Wood), who was sleeping with Stephen as well, was pregnant with Morris’ child, had an abortion funded by Stephen, and committed suicide for fear of the story getting out. Stephen plans to use this information to sabotage Morris’ campaign after he is fired for being untrustworthy, but he cannot get a job working for the opposing candidate now. So Stephen resolves to blackmail Morris using this information, getting Morris to fire Paul and hire him as the new head campaign manager.

The Ides of March shows a great deal about the media’s influence on politics. I believe that this was the main political focus of the film. Towards the beginning of the movie, Stephen and Paul meet with Ida Horowicz. She is the journalist who represents the main media struggle in the film. When Ida threatens to throw Stephen’s “traitor” story on the front page of the Times, he says to her in his childlike hurt, “I thought you were my friend.” She replies callously that they are not friends, it’s all business and politics. 

The movie closes with Ida coming after Steve for a story again, “Hey Steve. I'm still your friend, right?” Stephen replies “You're my best friend, Ida.”

The film illustrates the well known notion that politics is an ugly business and no politician is the perfect saint they pretend to be. Even the “good guys” like Morris. I find it humorous that Stephen accuses Molly of being naive, he implies that she is too sweet to play in the “big leagues” if she thinks it’s okay to make a mistake as big as she has. Stephen too has his weak moments and is quite naive as he is so shocked to find out that his perfect Mr. President is only human after all. He convicts Morris of committing the greatest sin in the history of politics; sleeping with the intern. Nice to meet you Mr. Clinton.