Democracy is about a lot more than the nuts and bolts of electoral politics and life in Washington D.C. But those parts of democracy do tend to make for good storytelling, and that's what we're going to talk about first on the today.

CLIP: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" is the iconic movie 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 is, a virtuous, innocent man like Jimmy Stewart's Mr. Smith -- a small-town nobody picked by cynical powerbrokers to fill a Senate seat -- can triumph and redeem it in the end.

CLIP: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

And "Mr. Smith" was more than just a movie. It appeared at a moment when everything was riding on the elected leadership in Washington -- ending the Great Depression, and entering World War II.

The film became part of the way Americans think about democracy.

Whenever an apparently honest and even slightly innocent maverick like Jimmy Carter or John McCain or Howard Dean runs for president, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" colors the way we see that candidate, and surely also colors those candidates' visions of their own missions.

And ever since “Mr. Smith,” most of the best films and TV shows about Politics have essentially been updated remakes.

CLIP: "The Candidate"

"The Candidate," stars Robert Redford as a candidate picked by cynical party powerbrokers to run for the Senate, who can speak truth to power because he's such a long shot. And, like the original Mr. Smith, when he resists his establishment handlers, they squeeze him -- but he triumphs in the end.

"The Candidate" came out in 1972, the year of Watergate, and unlike Mr. Smith, the Redford character ends the film with the glimmer of a modern existential crisis that nicely undercuts the thrill of victory.

CLIP: "The Candidate," final line of the film: "What do we do now?"

And Mr. Sterling that premiered earlier this year on NBC was explicitly a 21st century "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." The cynical party powerbrokers who pick Mr. Sterling assume he is 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 agrees with Republican positions.

CLIP: "Mr. Sterling"

That show's take on politics was complex and subtle and smart. Maybe too complex and subtle in this political age dominated by polarized shouters on the left and right. Mr. Sterling was cancelled last spring after just half a season on the air.

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