Hello Election Year!

Emily posted on Friday, January 13th, 2012 | Uncategorized

It was 2005. Melissa Robbins Allison was producing a story about games — the game of being a drug dealer, a high school student, a matchmaker — when she interviewed Todd. “Todd Elmer was a new Facebook friend of a friend….  All I knew when I sat down to do the interview was that he was a lawyer, willing to talk about the game of being a lawyer.” But Melissa ended up scrapping hours of tape — the high school student, the exotic dancer, the drug dealer. Todd’s story was just too powerful.

In the 2000 presidential election, Todd had been a lawyer for the Gore campaign, and represented the Democratic party in the eventual recount of ballots in Florida. “It seemed like he was ready to tell this story, like he was in a real moment of personal transition.  And it just poured out of him.” Allison interwove his personal story from that contested election with clips from James Carse reading his book, “Finite and Infinite Games,” creating a sound collage which illuminates the emotional and theoretical complexities of political elections.

Now in rotation: this highly recommended listen!