The tagline of the 1993 film Dave, reads: “In a country where anyone can become president, anyone just did.” This very simple statement asks audiences to consider what kind of person can participate in politics, as first half of the tagline highlights a vital segment of the American dream: the American rhetoric of equality of opportunity gives “anyone” the chance to become so important and influential as to run the entire country, regardless of their beginnings. The second half, however, sarcastically points out that “anyone” might be able to become president, but really “anyone” does not become president. This contradiction between rhetoric and actual opportunity leads us to ask questions about who, as an electorate, we put into office. Emerging at the end of an era of reliance upon small government and disappointing conservative policies, Dave typifies the political climate of a frustrated American electorate, confused about the roles individuals should play within the political structure, how different individuals utilize that structure, and why individuals become involved in politics. At the dawn of a new presidential administration and the looming possibility of solutions to crucial social problems, this need to make the executive office more accessible to ordinary people becomes even more important in the presidential election of 1992, in terms of who can become president and potentially make the necessary changes to “fix” the country’s problems, and whether this person can be trusted to effectively change the country. The characters in the film express this tension between an optimistic desire for the American democratic system to succeed and the distrust in the specific individuals who become active in our executive sector, as well as expressing the true potential of the system to actually work “for the people.”
This tension between desire to believe in potential of government but skepticism in the individual finds its contextual roots within the political climate of the early 1990s. The electorate continues its “skeptical search for an active government” amidst the legacy of the Bush administration, which came to a close with relatively high unemployment, very low job creation, and a static gross national product, as the level of government ineffectiveness within the working class. As a result of laissez-faire economic policy, middle-class families had become caught in the cycle of “work and spend,” health insurance problems were rising, and incomes had become alarmingly stagnant. The Reagan era saw an increase in the inequality between an economic class of elites that can “bypass institutions it doesn’t like” and the lower classes, which only contributes to the growing distrust in a government that has come to operate out of that elite class. All of these factors cultivated a sense of tangible disparity between the governors and the governed, that the Bush administration had become “out of touch, indifferent, and ineffective.”
The 1992 election saw a heightened emphasis on the individuality of the next president, as a disillusioned public grappled with where it would find the solutions to its residual problems, which, they thought, might lie in the next administration. The promise of laissez-faire economics had all but met expectations, though analysts adamantly argue that material concerns and that type of well-being, like lower interest rates and low inflation, were only “a part of the story” in the political climate of the early nineties, as the real issue for the electorate was “dignity for themselves and their country.” The 1992 presidential ballot posited three candidates with separate possible solutions to the nation’s critical economic and social problems, however the candidate who offered the most persuasive argument for a solution was Bill Clinton.
Clinton attempted to present a “new covenant” with the American public through his campaign of “Putting People First.” This attempt to humanize the electorate appealed to their faith in the democratic process, reawakening national rhetoric about citizenship and equalizing voters across demographic lines with what McWilliams refers to as “a Republic of equals.” Regardless of whether or not Clinton could actually create this “Republic of equals,” he appealed to the dignity of African American voters by addressing them as citizens instead of as an economic class or a voting block, which was especially important after the Rodney King beating and subsequent race riots in Los Angeles in 1992. These problems only emphasized the Democratic Party’s drive to end the “decade of neglect” that resulted from the lack of comprehensive policies of the prior administrations regarding inner city living and lower social classes.
Clinton was voted into office, however, by less than a fifty-percent plurality vote, which further emphasizes the public’s ambiguity on government’s effectiveness. Its inability to completely agree on a candidate paired against the rise in voter turnout highlights the tension between faith that the system of government can take responsibility to respond to its constituents and to serve them, and the skepticism with which they regard the individuals who operate within the government itself, reflecting the kinds of questions Dave asks about our faith in the American democratic system.
Dave takes the type of individual the electorate is used to – President Mitchell – and replaces him with an ordinary guy who just happens to look like the president, asking audiences to consider what kind of person can run the country. Dave’s depiction of President Mitchell giving a speech at the beginning of the film, in which he references his “law school days back at Yale,” with his good friend Jordan Blankfort – “now Justice Blankfort” – argues that this is the normative image of a president that Americans have come to expect. This particular image is of a specific class of people: Ivy League educated, upper class, more in-the-world than of-the-world, who have somehow learned that they can participate in politics, utilizing the structure of government for personal gain and networking, and often acting as if they are above the laws they are employed to enforce. Ironically, the American electorate has come to expect this type of person, and yet still votes anyway, exemplifying the tension between skepticism in the individuals within government and a desire to believe in the power of the government as a whole. The problem with accepting an archetype or expectation of the president comes with the president’s consistent inability to deliver proper aid to his country through the government, as, Dave argues, the class of person who can become president is inherently disconnected from “ordinary people,” who have different ideas about what the government should do for its country.
The elites portrayed by the Mitchell administration are not those who believe in an effective government that will comprehensively and thoroughly work for its citizens, arguing that this class of politicians that enters the executive office has a differing view of the purpose and function than ordinary citizens might. This is apparent from the first scene in which President Mitchell meets with his cabinet to discuss the “Simpson-Gardner thing,” which, he says, “has got homeless shelters. Home start centers. Hot lunches for the little kiddies.” He condescendingly chastises his cabinet members for not having “killed it” in Congress. This bill represents the will of American citizens through their legislative bodies, and, in contrast to the executive branch, the means of articulating interests and needs to the government. The executive branch’s efforts to “kill it” directly argue that this branch is typically constructed of political elites who see public office as a means for personal gain, who are not concerned with actively utilizing the government for the public good. The fact that President Mitchell and his chief of staff, Bob Alexander, push to kill the bill before the president can veto it highlights the importance of the image of the president as a person who works for the people but actually uses the office as a means of personal and economic gain.
President Mitchell’s façade only makes Dave’s naivete more compelling, as Dave’s ordinariness shows how inaccessible the executive branch is seen to be. Next to Bill Mitchell and his administration, which is full of confident, respected politicians conditioned for the political sphere, Dave seems to only highlight the lack of confidence ordinary people have in their ability to participate in politics; only when he is given power, authority, and respect does he begin to understand that he is just as capable to run the country as any other man.
The main difference, Dave argues, is that the ordinary person wants to use the democratic system to help the masses, while the class of person who actually has access to the executive office would rather use it for some type of personal gain. This perspective is exemplified when Dave fully realizes that he has full executive authority – Bob Alexander cannot oust Dave from the office, as Bob placed Dave there illegally in the first place – and also realizes that he has no actual culpability, considering he is not actually the president. By removing the element of personal culpability, Dave argues that many politicians, utilizing the political structure for personal gain, like Mitchell and the First Liberty scandal, will operate dishonestly to avoid taking responsibility and save their own image. As the ordinary people suddenly given great authority under another politician’s name, Dave and Ellen Mitchell collaborate to utilize his position to run the government the way they, as “ordinary people” uninvolved in politics, think the government should be run.
Subsequently, the choices Dave makes while standing in for the president argue that ordinary people could make the government far more accessible to other ordinary people, and would use executive power to literally make ordinary peoples’ lives better. After Dave and Ellen go to see the homeless shelter, the real problems of real people become most important to ordinary Dave. Dave and his friend Murray, the accountant, rework the entire federal budget – about which, Murray comments, “If I ran my office this way, I’d be out of business!” – and remove stuffy and superfluous industrial, bureaucratic, and economic entanglements to make room for a social welfare bill that could help those specific real problems of real American people. The problem still lies in convincing the president’s cabinet that this is important which, the film argues, can only really be done when officials are held personally responsible for the authority that they wield, as the people in office are too disconnected from their constituents to effectively control their government.
This effectiveness of personal culpability for political elites emphasizes the importance of image for elected officials within the executive branch, noting the ambiguity in a public that seems to see through the image-based front of politics, and yet still strains to find hope within it. Dave, being an ordinary person, is able to force politicians to individually confront their own policy choices to save their images. The scene in which Dave, as President Mitchell, explains the budget changes argues that the individuals who comprise the American government are only interested in utilizing their position to help ordinary people when confronted personally about their actions. Dave directly asks the secretary of commerce, “Do you want to tell an eight-year-old kid he has to sleep on the street because we want people to feel better about their cars?” To which the secretary, reflectively, replies, in the face of television cameras and press representatives, “No. No, I certainly don’t.” It seems that this is the first time the secretary is confronted with a bridge between the gap of the governor and the governed, and his concession to Dave’s question optimistically argues that this bridge is possible, even probable.
By the end of the George H. W. Bush administration, Americans had become disillusioned with the electoral system in general, as there was a general consensus that presidents had “so often abused the national interest for their own political ends” that adherence to partisan efforts seemed unproductive. This same sort of neglect of the American public is seen in the scene in which pundits and representatives urge Dave to cut back on the jobs bill and ousting the First Liberty scandal. A Congressman comments, “We may be able to hold off on this First Liberty thing for a while … but if you’re pushing this new jobs.. Just put us on a spit and bring the sauce.. If you’d just wait a few months!” Dave quietly responds with a “I don’t want to wait. We can’t,” emphasizing that the urgency of social problems in the United States is more important than politicians’ reputations. This ordinary person may not be politically savvy, or, like Bob Alexander, “in Who’s Who in Washington nine years in a row,” but he can see that real political problems are larger than the individuals who orchestrate – or ignore – the solutions.
Interestingly enough, through contrasting the ordinariness of Dave, Murray, and even Ellen Mitchell with Bob Alexander and the president, Dave depicts an administration that has, too, fallen out of touch with the needs of its electorate. Dave argues, however, that the government can be utilized for good – it is just a matter of who can be placed in a position of power and what they decide to do with that power.
Only when the elite class of politicians understands the pressing needs of ordinary people can the gap between the governed and the governors be effectively bridged.
Only when he has nothing to lose does Dave take advantage of his power as president, but he does so in an unexpected way, which, the film argues, is how ordinary people want their government to be used. Ellen Mitchell asks, after she and Dave decide to resign as First Lady and false President, “What would you do if you were still in? I mean, if you had one more chance to be president, what would you do then?” To which Dave replies, “Lots of things.” These “things” all revolve around reactivating a social sector of the government to help other “ordinary people” and, later, exposing the financial scandal involving the president and the chief of staff themselves. These two ordinary persons decide to use their position to the advantage of the ordinary people who are arguably forgotten by the Mitchell administration. The two are able to conspire and expose because of two factors: there is no personal culpability for Dave, as he is not actually the president who owes economic and bureaucratic favors to other people, and he also does not have to make it through the filter of the electorate and can operate as himself under the guise of being the legitimately elected President of the United States.
Under this guise, Dave “takes back” the government for ordinary people covertly, leveling the playing field between those within the administration who are their for personal gain and the ordinary people with noble intentions. By admitting to a joint session of Congress that the First Liberty Scandal occurred, Dave insures that Bob Alexander and President Mitchell must take full responsibility for their actions, which Bob and Alan were going to blame on the vice president. It is interesting that the one “ordinary person” within the administration is the one who has to take the fall for the scandal at first, until Dave rectifies the situation. This situation is not necessarily a triumph of good over evil, but of the democratic process over those trying to exploit it, and this can be done by ordinary people harnessing control of their government and learning that they do have access to it.
The lovely idea that this ordinary person can rework the federal budget for social welfare programs or expose and “admit” to illegal operations is a bit clouded by the fact that Dave was not actually elected president. This argues that the bureaucracy and technicalities of becoming president prevents “ordinary people” from coming through the system or becoming confident enough to begin the climb up the ladder of public service. Ordinary people need that confidence to make it through the electoral system, with their pure intentions to help people, as American political culture seems to inhibit all but a specific archetype from reaching office. However, Dave also argues that the American public’s faith in their own government structure is not completely unfound, as there is hope at least for “ordinary people” to take back their government and use it as they see fit.
In the particularly thoughtful scene in which Dave invites Vice President Nance to sit and chat, the film presents these questions about the ideology of the “ordinary person,” and its role in politics, Dave argues, can be seen within the character of Vice President Nance in contrast to the rest of the Mitchell administration. Dave asks Nance how he “got started,” to which Nance surprisedly replies, “I was a shoe salesman. But not very happy about it.” In telling his story about how his wife commented, “Why don’t you run for office? You talk about it all the time,” and his subsequent political endeavors, from becoming a councilman with his wife as his campaign manager, Nance indicates that there is indeed room within the political infrastructure for the optimism of ordinary people who want to make a difference in the United States. The placement of Nance’s character as the vice president argues that the ordinary people are on their way to infiltrating the system, but considering his status as second-in-command, ordinary people are not quite there yet.
By cultivating a sense of cooperation and public service within the executive office, Dave continues to exemplify the epitome of American democracy that Americans find inconsistent with the individuals within government. Dave, the ordinary person who without even meaning to believes in equality, cultivates a lovely friendship with his bodyguard Duane. After Dave’s press conference, in which he announces his ambitious and very liberal jobs initiative, Duane comments, “US News hammered us, but they’re always tough. Rosenthal loved us.” The very small shift in Duane’s syntax to refer to their administration as “us” instead of the previous “them” says everything about Dave’s participation: that he is transforming the current administration to be accessible to ordinary people. In this great metaphorical way is Dave itself allowing us to feasibly imagine transforming the government into doing exactly what ordinary people would like it to do.
Considering that it is never revealed to the country that ordinary Dave accomplished all of these wonderful things, the film ends on an oddly optimistic note, highlighting the tension between who can actually engage in politics and who can be elected. The fact that Dave never gets credit for his work indicates that these norms and expectations that the American public has of their politicians are established and probably can endure. However, by the end of the film, ordinary Dave runs for local office, as he has become confident and learned that he does have the ability to effectively serve the public as an ordinary person, urging the ordinary people to understand their own potential within the American political system. The standing tension seen in the American electorate through the 1990s and within the film Dave is acknowledged, developed, and given possible relief with the message that ordinary people can and should understand their own abilities, highlighting the core of the American ideal of representative democracy as, President Mitchell ironically states at the beginning of the film, a government “of the people, by the people.” Dave firmly argues that it is up to ordinary people to hold their government accountable – or to become their own government.
