www.themadefortvelection.com "Carter's Crisis of Competence" is one of numerous television-based, "pseudo-realities" presented in this rare, never-before-broadcast documentary feature examining how TV changed the 1980 Presidential Election Campaign when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter. Watch how commercial broadcast networks use polls, gaffes, stereotypes and other show business values to create winners and losers in a drama of their own making to pump the ratings--and distract you from what you need to be an informed citizen and understand what's really happening in America. "Profoundly enlightening... a devastating look at TV's impact on the presidency." --Helen Thomas, Hearst News Service and "Dean Emeritus" of the White House press corps. Before Martin Sheen was playing President and winning elections in NBC's "The West Wing"... before the Supreme Court stopped the recount in Florida... before even the Internet--back when CNN was in its infancy--there was an election. It was an election that was made-by-TV, for-TV. We call it "The Made-for-TV Election." The year was 1980... the raw power of the Big Three TV Networks was at it's peak... CBS wore the Tiffany Crown and Walter Cronkite was "the most credible man in America." Jimmy Carter was stuck in the White House surrounded by gas lines... An actor named Ronald Reagan came out of the West promising "to get government off the backs of the people" and repeal the New Deal. And as had become the habit, the TV Networks put politics and show business together in a blender and branded the brew "Campaign 80": Carter's Crisis of Competence... The Kennedy Challenge... Chappaquiddick Revisited... The Shah Blunder... Jerry Brown the Clown... Bush's Big Iowa Mo... Reagan's Nashua Theatrics... TV's Maverick... The Rose Garden Strategy... The Dream Ticket... Carter the Loser... Reagan the Buffoon... Carter the Meenie... The Great Debate... The October Surprise... America Held Hostage Revisited... Election Night... Day 444... and other episodes that reveal TV's hidden hand in an election that radically changed America's course. "Pertinent, powerful and persuasive... handsomely produced.... brilliant..." former Los Angeles Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg. By revealing TV's role as catalyst, The Made-for-TV Election dispels the Made-for-TV myth that Ronald Reagan's landslide victory represented a "rising conservative tide in America" mandating the "Reagan Revolution" and "a sharp right turn in 1980, both from its own previous half century and, perhaps even more tellingly, from the economic, social and political norms of other developed countries..." This detour into business values, privatization and commercialization of the commons "has come at profound cost to Americans' common good. We work far longer hours, pay more for worse medical care, live shorter and more brutish (less educated, less leisurely, less informed, less equal, more polluting) lives than our European counterparts. That there are no easy solutions should come as no surprise..." From a review of Dean Baker's "The World Since 1980" by Leslie Thatcher, Truthout. "This film should be seen by every American in every city and town." -- Norman Lear, TV producer and Founder, People for the American Way. For US politics and news junkies everywhere, thanks to the Internet, this "must see TV" is coming soon to a screen very close to you. Look for DVD release in April 2008. www.themadefortvelection.com Copyrights 1986-2008 News Analysis Associates All Rights Reserved