Robert Redford stars as The Candidate 50 years ago and today rallying Democrats

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. – Robert Redford is still the Sundance Kid looking for social justice as fans today recall his role as a Democratic senate candidate some 50 years ago here in Springfield.

It was 50 years ago -- during the February 1972 Democratic primaries to choose who would run against Republican President Richard Nixon – that “The Candidate,” a 1972 film starring Robert Redford hit movie theaters across America with the central message that “the business of campaigning has overridden the condition of taking office.” The Candidate, filmed here in Eugene’s sister city, Springfield, and in California where Redford’s character, Bill McKay, is a political novice running for the California Senate election. Fans here in Springfield – who still wear “McKay for Senate” campaign buttons that were handed out for “Extra’s” featured in scenes with Redford as “Candidate McKay” – said in a Feb. 2 Huliq interview in downtown Springfield that , “Gosh, if only the real Robert Redford was running for office today, he’d vanquish any Republican he’d run against.”

Also, Springfield local Walter Shumway remembers that the “McKay campaign banner was Oregon Duck colors green and yellow” during the filming at a Springfield meeting hall where Shumway said “Redford as Senate Candidate McKay brought us to our feet yelling ‘McKay, McKay, McKay.’”

The Candidate from 1972 mirrors today’s politics

It’s been 50 years since the Robert Redford film “The Candidate” came out, and locals here in Springfield still talk about it as if Redford -- in his role as California Senate candidate – was still running for office based on the fact that Redford’s “political films” have championed the power of individuals to change the course of history and politics.

For instance, Redford has said in interviews that he’s proud of his role as the producer and one of the stars of “All the President’s Men,” that began Redford’s real life role in opposing what he calls as “greedy and out-of-touch Republicans.”

All the President’s Men tells the story of Bob Woodward (played by Redford) and Carl Bernstein (played by Dustin Hoffman), the Washington Post journalists who exposed Republican President Richard Nixon’s role in the Watergate scandal – that also included the Republican vice president and dozens of high ranking Nixon GOP cabinet members – that ended the Nixon presidency and, according to political science experts who teach “Watergate” and the nation’s top universities “about how politics corrupts.”

In turn, Redford told Mother Earth News is an interview that he produced “All the President’s Men” because he thought it important to tell this “tale of empowerment, showing what two guys on the lowest rung of the ladder could do through sheer hard work to take down the highest position in the land.”

Redford thinks America need statesmen

Redford also told Mother Earth News that America today still needs these tales of empowerment now more than ever. “In all my years in politics and entertainment, I have never seen the political system as a whole so constipated.”

In turn, a recent snail mail posting from Redford’s “Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) warns that the current crop of game show host Republican political candidates for the White House in 2012 is not environmentally friendly.

Redford was once of the founding members of the NRDC back some 50 years ago when he was elected as U.S. Senator Bill McKay in the 1972 film “The Candidate,” while expanding his environmental advocacy beyond his Sundance environmental protection and film empire.

Mother Earth News also noted how Redford has “lobbied heavily for the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act,” by fighting Republican challengers “as far back as 1975, when he produced short films and documentaries promoting solar power.”

Today, Redford remains a trustee of NRDC; with the organization recently naming its new Santa Monica, Calif., office building after him, and stating: “it’s the greenest building in America” according to the U.S. Green Building Council.

Of course, this all vexes Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and other Republicans that Redford says are 360 degrees in the opposite direction from his concerns that Americans are not doing enough to safeguard America’s environmental treasures. For instance, both Romney and Gingrich said they will “drill more” in the pristine areas of Alaska and other parts of the U.S. for oil even while Redford and the NRDC state in their 2012 pamphlets that such “drilling will forever harm America’s environment.”

Redford behind the scenes for Democrats

Just like the Republican king maker, Carl Rove – who’s been dubbed “Bush’s Brain” after helping former President George W. Bush figure out things – Redford has supported Democrats “for decades,” reports Mother Earth News; while also noting that “Redford also has supported pro-environmental political candidates, mostly at state and local levels.

In turn, Redford told Mother Earth News: “I decided the best place for me to participate in politics, as a so-called celebrity, was local for two reasons:

-- “One, I felt that the national stage was too attractive for people in my business to jump onto,” Redford explains. “I did not think we were that we were that qualified to mount the bully pulpit and compete with politicians – that requires years and years of study and involvement.”

-- “Two, you can’t discount the issue of resentment – celebrities are both adored and resented.”

-- Also, Redford told Mother Earth News that “Many Americans today are understandably wary of the kind of privilege associated with celebrities – people with easy lifestyles who live in the capital of avarice, but think they can tell masses what’s right and wrong.”

Redford at 75, now the Democrats senior political guru

To fully understand why Redford has been called the Carl Rove “antidote” for Democrats, Mother Earth News profiled Redford one afternoon at his Sundance, Utah, and refuge “for artistic freethinking and political innovation.”

Also, a surprise to fans is that Redford turned “75” last August, but the star says “I don’t think about age.”

For instance, Redford still rides horses and seems to act like the Sundance Kid in real life.

“Redford dismounted his horse and strolled the cobblestone paths at Sundance Village toward the Tree Room, a rustic restaurant at the heart of the resort. Sporting weathered blue jeans, cowboy boots and a slightly bowlegged swagger, he looked like he was en route to meet Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday at the OK Corral. In fact, he was headed for a meeting with former Vice President Al Gore and dozens of mayors from across the United States who had convened at Redford’s invitation.”

Nearby was a passage that Redford had commissioned for a wall in this meeting room where top Democrats and others seeking social justice come to meet with this “Sundance Kid,” who now carries on the political work of his late friend Paul Newman (Butch Cassidy) in the onscreen and real-life role as crusaders for the working man faced with rich who want to eat up America’s environment for more riches.

The plaque’s words, written by Redford, on his Sundance “Tree Room” meeting wall state:

“This place in the mountains,
Amid nature’s casualness toward death and birth,
Is the perfect host for the inspiration of ideas:
Harsh at times, life-threatening in its winters
of destruction,
but tender in attention to the details
of every petal of every wildflower resurrected
in the spring.
Nature and creativity obey the same laws,
To the same end: life.”

Redford’s “The Candidate” highlights greed

When Redford paid for the film of “All the President’s Men,” and the 1972 film “The Candidate,” as both of these film’s producer and star, he sent a “clear message” state film critics that – as Redford himself explained – that modern day American politics focuses too much on the importance of money and the emphasis of the image of political candidates.

In turn, Redford said 50 years ago – as “Senator Bill McKay” in his film “The Candidate” that politicians need to be much more than just “idiotic little slogans.”

While, at the same time, Redford’s Senator McKay – with the film’s slogan “Bill McKay: the better way” also describes a ‘Faustian pact’ that’s still here today in 2012 where candidates “ideology is submerged during the process of campaigning.”

Redford’s film “The Candidate” from 50 years ago in 1972 also highlights the many criticisms of the modern day Occupy movement; such as the importance of money and “the emphasis on the image over substance of today’s Republican candidates.”

Also, it’s been reported that upon viewing “The Candidate” back in February 1972, Republican Dan Quayle “came to the conclusion that he was more handsome than Robert Redford and that he would be well equipped to win a campaign to enter the White House,” states a history of Redford’s film “The Candidate.”

Ironically -- in real life imitating art -- Quayle would become a future vice president who’s now more famous for not being able to spell potato; while Redford carries on as a true political candidate for the people and America’s environment.

Image source of the movie poster for “The Candidate,” a 1972 political movie that was filmed, in part, in Springfield, Oregon, while starring Robert Redford who also produced this film about how “the political machine corrupts” most all politicians in America back some 50 years in 1972 and also today in 2012. Redford is blowing a bubble-gum-bubble in the poster as a way to mock the political system that’s based more on money ball than real statesmen who want to serve Americans. Photo courtesy Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Candidate_(1972_film)

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