Ides Of March Essay

Several of the main characters in Ides of March were used to remind viewers that the experience of running an American political campaign is crushing for the body and soul. The movie begins with a positive political outlook at the Ohio Democratic Primary Debate. Presidential hopefuls Governor of Pennsylvania, Mike Morris, and Senator of Arkansas, Ted Pullman, stand firm on their platform issues with a great sense of morality. Morris was against the death penalty and any form of wealth distribution that would only benefit the rich. He argued that you can’t fight extremism with extremism. Instead, he proposed that the best way to fight foreign powers was to do away with internal combustion engines so that we no longer had to rely on foreign …show more content…
She claimed that American people had a right to know what was going on, and she had no problem threatening to blackmail him to get the information. What she really wanted was information on the Thompson deal. Steven did not want to give her any information out of loyalty to Paul is mentor. If he had given her the information it would have made Paul look like a fool. Steven felt betrayed when he confronted Paul with the information leak and discovered that Paul was Ida’s source. Paul argued that without loyalty a person has nothing and no one, especially in politics where loyalty is revered as currency. This seemed like an extreme contradiction as he used the setup to get Steven fired from the campaign he was bending over backwards to protect. Steven went to Tom to offer inside information on Morris in exchange for a position on Pullman’s campaign, but Tom did not want to hire him. His motivation was to keep his opponent from having a guy like Steven on his team. Since had been unsuccessful at acquiring Steven for Pullman’s campaign his best option was to ensure that he didn’t work on Morris’s campaign.
Ben Harpen, a member of Morris’s campaign staff, was very interested in using Meyer’s disappointment to further his own career. When he told Molly that Steven had been fired his excitement was clear. He was going to take Steven’s position on the campaign, which meant that his political career was about to take a three year advancement. Molly did not want to lose her position on the campaign, but even more than that she did not want her father to find out about her affair with Morris or the