The director of a new 17-minute campaign advertisement that President Obama’s reelection campaign has described as a “documentary” said Thursday night he couldn’t find a negative side of the president’s first term to put in the new film.
“The negative for me was there were too many accomplishments,” Davis Guggenheim told CNN’s Piers Morgan. “I had 17 minutes to put them all in there.”
Morgan pressed Guggenheim, who admitted to being “in awe of” Obama, on whether the film would be balanced. Guggenheim also admitted to taking a “pay cut” to make the movie.
“I think there are negatives in the sense that, the challenges when you’re trying to pass healthcare in a really toxic environment, they’re negatives in terms of the opposition he’s had, in terms of the political climate in Washington,” he said. “He’s wanted to bring people together, he’s wanted to compromise, he’s wanted to bring people together to make tough decisions — I say that in the movie. And he hasn’t had another side working with him.”
Mitt Romney, speaking at a campaign event Friday, scoffed at the “new infomercial” and the director’s interview the previous night.
“I have some suggestions for the president and for the producer,” he said. “First of all, talk to the 24 million Americans that are out of work or underemployed in this country.”
Guggenheim directed a 30-minute campaign video for Obama in 2008, as well as Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” The trailer for the 17-minute pro-Obama film, narrated by actor Tom Hanks, was released by the campaign earlier this week. The film, called “The Road We’ve Traveled,” will screen for supporters at various campaign events.
