THE CAMPAIGN

Marching through Georgia on what should have been a shoo-in reelection campaign, Republican Senator Bob Grant is forcibly reminded that big-time politics can be bloody murder in this tedious and far-fetched follow-up to Embrace the Serpent (1992). The venal, vaultingly ambitious (and unnamed) Democrat who gained the White House under false pretenses frets about taking on the right-minded Grant in a fair fight for the US presidency two years hence. To ensure he won't have to face the popular African- American on the hustings any time soon, POTUS (President of the US) puts his villainous Attorney General on the case. In relatively short order, the Colin Powell-like candidate finds himself framed for the murder of a reporter (supposedly digging into his suspect past) and accused of other improprieties, including drug abuse and adultery with a staffer who subsequently committed suicide. Thanks to help from family, friends, and an unlikely southern sheriff, the loving father of four is able to fight the ugly charges instigated by an evil administration that has centralized federal intelligence as well as law-enforcement organizations (CIA, DEA, FBI, etc.) in a single sinister agency (the NIIA). Undaunted by the police powers of the presidency, the hostility of a famously liberal press, and treachery within his own camp, the beleaguered candidate finally obtains the proof he needs to clear himself with voters just days before the election. With NIIA thugs in hot pursuit, Grant makes it from Washington to the Atlanta studio of CNN, astonishing the nation with his exculpatory evidence and a shocking demand that the rat-bastard chief executive be impeached. Over-the-top plotting, leaden dialogue, and a surfeit of partisan asides, courtesy of a former Second Lady and her sister. ($70,000 ad/promo; radio satellite tour; author tour)