What to Binge This Weekend: Forget Trump 2016, It's 'Tanner '88'
With primary debate season in full swing on both sides of the aisle, it’s a good time to revisit the ghosts of Presidential candidates past. You know, folks like Mitt Romney, Howard Dean, Paul Tsongas, and Jack Tanner. Don’t remember Jack Tanner? Well, you’re in luck, because his short-lived, problem-plagued campaign to secure the 1988 Democratic nomination is preserved for posterity in HBO’s 11-part documentary series Tanner ’88, currently streaming on Hulu. Following the Michigan congressman on the trail from the snowy New Hampshire primaries to the Democratic National Convention in sunny Atlanta, the series is both a time capsule of a vanished political past and a cautionary tale for aspiring candidates with more chutzpah than common sense (or large bank accounts).
It’s also entirely fake. Well, almost. “Jack Tanner” is definitely a fictional construct, dreamed into being by writer Garry Trudeau (the mastermind behind Doonesbury), director Robert Altman (the director of the politically-minded classic Nashville) and stage and screen performer Michael Murphy (one of those character actors whose face is better known than their name). But that trio of collaborators had the brilliant notion of letting him loose in an all-too-real world, hitting the ground in New Hampshire, Georgia, and other places that year’s actual candidates — including Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis, who eventually became the Democratic nominee — turn up. At a time when the mockumentary format was still new to television, Tanner ’88’s blend of fact and fiction represents the missing link between The Rutles and Da Ali G Show.
In order to burnish Murphy’s credentials as a real candidate, Altman and Trudeau surrounded him with other fake associates to play off of. The brilliant comic actress Pamela Reed — who, years later, would play the mom of another overzealous civil servant, Leslie Knope, on Parks and Recreation — does stellar work as Tanner’s campaign manager, and future Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon makes an early impression as his starry-eyed daughter, Alex. (An older, bitter Alex takes center stage in the 2004 sequel series, Tanner on Tanner, which spoofs the independent film industry as well as the political realm. That follow-up isn’t available on Hulu, but it can be purchased on DVD.) They all admirably stay in character, even when a real-life political personality like Bob Dole or Gary Hart wanders into the frame. It’s both remarkable, and a little unnerving, that all these years later, Jack Tanner seems like a more believable candidate than some of the folks currently running.
Tanner ’88 can be streamed on Hulu.
