That's Mr. Smith, the virtuous regular-guy populist politician portrayed 65 years ago by Jimmy Stewart in the Frank Capra movie, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

"Mr. Smith" is the iconic film about American politics because its story is one that Americans have always wanted to believe about their democracy: that no matter how venal and corrupt politics may be, one clear-sighted incorruptible ordinary man like Mr. Smith can triumph and redeem it in the end.

"Mr. Smith" was more than just a movie from the beginning, in no small part because it appeared exactly on the cusp of the Great Depression and World War II, a moment everything was riding on the elected leadership in Washington.

So the film became part of the way Americans think about their government and politicians.

And even now, whenever a long-shot maverick like Jimmy Carter or John McCain or Howard Dean runs for president convincingly, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" colors the way we see that candidate, and surely also colors those candidates' visions of their own missions.

Near the end of the movie "Mr. Smith" filibusters on the Senate floor and then collapses on the Senate floor, an emotional wreck.

Howard Dean's emotional outburst the night he lost the Iowa caucuses did not exactly work as a reproduction of that film moment..

John Kerry succeeded in derailing Howard Dean because he, Kerry, was in the end able to do the "Mr. Smith" act more convincingly than Dean.

Even though now, in the final stretch, John Edwards has been doing his best to be virtuous regular-guy populist alternative to Kerry.

In other words, he was trying desperately to be the more convincing "Mr. Smith."

Not only does "Mr. Smith" continue to resonate in real political life, ever since it came out most of the best films and TV shows about politics have essentially been updated cover versions.

"The Candidate" stars Robert Redford as a candidate, like "Mr. Smith," picked by cynical party powerbrokers to run for the Senate. He wins. And then at the end of the movie comes the glimmer of his existential crisis.

CLIP from "The Candidate": "What do we do now?"

And a TV show called Mr. Sterling that premiered a year ago on NBC was explicitly a 21st century "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

The cynical party powerbrokers who pick Mr. Sterling assume he's a Democrat because his father had been Governor Sterling, a famous Democrat -- but it turns out after he's in office that the innocent, anti-political son is an independent, who sometimes actually agrees with Republican positions.

That program's take on politics was complex and subtle and smart. Maybe too complex in this political age dominated by oversimplified, familiar versions of left and right. Mr. Sterling was cancelled last spring after just half a season on the air.

Kind of like Howard Dean was canceled this year.