Nevada Kubrick: The Candidate (1972) The Jarman-McKay Debate

Source: Nevada Kubrick- The Jarman- McKay debate, from The Candidate, in 1972.

Source:The New Democrat

"The Candidate" is the greatest election film of all time, and this is probably the best part of it, as the older Republican conservative incumbent, Crocker Jarman (Don Porter), squares off against his younger Democrat liberal opponent, Bill McKay (Robert Redford). Porter is absolutely brilliant in the role of the stoic but increasingly exasperated Jarman (he should have gotten an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor) and it is Redford's alltime best performance too."

From Nevada Kubrick

Even with Bill McKay's wishy-washy answer to the first question in this debate, this is still my favorite scene in a great movie about the classic underdog Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford against classic establishment incumbent Crocker Jarman, played by Don Porter. One candidate, Bill McKay, except for school busing and abortion, two critical issues where he essentially dodged the questions, says what he thinks. The incumbent, Crocker Jarman, gave classic sound-bite answers allowing no insight into his philosophy.

This is a classic political film about the establishment vs. the reformer. Where even the reformer or Progressive, ( played by Robert Redford ) has establishment or status-quo Conservatives working for him, at least in the sense that he has his own ideas in how his political campaign should be run, while people on his staff like his own campaign manger ( played by Peter Boyle ) are telling him not to rock the boat and wants to run a boring, cookie-cutter political campaign where his candidate never takes any hard stances on the issues.