My piece at Politico on the political economy of House of Cards and the moral low ground occupied by Republicans. An excerpt:
In an interview with TV Guide, Willimon described Underwood as “two scoops of LBJ with a dash of Richard III and a pinch of Hannibal Lecter.” Lyndon Baines Johnson was one of the great congressional arm-twisters of the 20th century and one of the most ruthless and ambitious politicians of all time. Underwood’s office has a famous set of pictures of the real-life LBJ working a colleague over with a mixture of charm and bullying, very much in the way Underwood behaves on the show. So there’s an element of cinéma vérité here.
But the real reason they made Underwood a Democrat, I think, is a little stranger and a little darker. And it comes with a lesson for Republicans. I think Willimon made Underwood a Democrat because he wanted us to like him.
Whole thing is here.
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