Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Tell me he doesn’t look completely insane. The only way to get over not being President was to become “The Man Who Saved The World”.

Politico:

It wasn’t exactly DCDance, but the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, definitely had its fair share of political overtones, along with a healthy contingent of Potomac personalities. Of course, there was the usual helping of showbiz types (Ray Romano! 50 Cent!), but the fun part was picking out the Hill folks from the Prada-and-bling crowd.

Herewith, a few snapshots from a sub-zero, snowbound film festival:

• Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty was seen along with former Virginia governor/U.S. Senate hopeful Mark Warner at an event to help celebrate the film “Kicking It,” a documentary about the Homeless World Cup soccer championship.

• Motion Picture Association of America chief Dan Glickman reports that he caught nearly a half-dozen movies in a little more than two days, including the U2 concert film in 3-D, the Jack Black comedy “Be Kind Rewind” and “Henry Poole Is Here,” the latter produced by Glickman pal Tom Rosenberg of Lakeshore Entertainment.

• Lagging Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel attended and, along with Glickman, took part in a Creative Coalition symposium and dinner. MIA from the campaign trail after the first round of debates, Gravel told us he has been sick for 30 days with the flu and then a sinus infection. Currently on his third round of antibiotics, he’s spending the rest of the week in Florida and plans to continue his campaign as an independent.

• Former Vice President Al Gore was seen walking into the U2 film sans entourage, then sitting with the band at the screening after being photographed by fans in the lobby amid screams of “We love you!”

Hard to tell who was the bigger rock star that night — Bono or Gore.

Breaking here from bold-faced political names, let’s pause and rock a bit. Music legend Patti Smith, arriving at Sundance for the world premiere of a biographical documentary titled “Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” gave a small club show Monday night during which she told faithful fans, “It’s an election year — and I have no advice.” (She did, in fact, implore the crowd to register to vote and “use your voice.”)

Earlier in the day, we had a brief discussion with the punk-poet goddess behind memorable anthems such as “People Have the Power” and “Because the Night.” Wearing a T-shirt with a scrawled peace sign design, she seemed extremely serious about the upcoming election and exercising her right to vote.

“I’m being very vigilant in studying our candidates,” she said, referring to herself as a “Democrat by blood” but still fiercely independent. “I feel that one of the things that’s important in our process is to have multiple candidates — that’s one of the things Ralph Nader was working so hard to preserve.”

Of the three main Democratic candidates, she said, “Edwards is very forthright, and I like him. I’m still learning about Obama. I’ve always had great respect for Hillary but was so heartbroken that she buckled during the vote [to invade Iraq], as did [most of] the Democrats. I was watching the vote on TV and praying that she would stand up and go against the grain and do what was morally right, and that’s haunted me.”

Smith says she’s still very undecided about Obama. “Yes,” she said, “he’s a beautiful speaker, but I’m still waiting to hear an emotional connection to him. I haven’t felt it, and I don’t know why. … But it’s still early, and I’m still studying him. It took me a while to warm up to John Edwards,” she said, adding that the third-ranked Democrat “lays out plans to me, and he says what he thinks.”

As for the GOP crowd, she hurled special vitriol at Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of her hometown. “I detest him,” she said flatly. “He’s used 9/11 [to win votes], which should not be used. He didn’t do anything that any other person in his position [wouldn’t have done]. I don’t see that he has communication skills or an understanding of global politics or other cultures. To me, he’s not presidential.”

Smith had a difficult time digesting big-money politics in general, however. “It’s very hard for me to stay a good citizen because of all this money wasted. It’s hard for me to watch the Democrats waste $50 million on [political] advertising when, being the so-called people’s party, that money could help education and fund a lot of arts programs in schools — the hypocrisy is palpable.”

“Dream of Life” includes footage of Smith at various political rallies, making Bush-bashing speeches and protesting the war in Iraq. The subject of war continues to grieve her. “We forgot what happened in Vietnam and let it happen again,” she said. “I loved Hillary, and I felt personally hurt by her action. We look to people like her as the guardians of our ideals.”

She insisted that the anti-Bush and anti-Iraq material be included in the film bio, even if it might seem dated in the next year or so.

“I’d like to be remembered as a person who acted and spoke out against it,” she concluded. “[Invading Iraq] was one of the most deplorable things in the past decade. It’s so fresh in my mind that there are still these young soldiers and innocent Iraqis dying. It’s not going to go away with an election; it’s going to take decades to recover from the damage.”