Inside the Beltway: New war

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By John McCaslin

NEW WAR

Gone forever is "The War Room" of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, manned by political newcomers Paul Begala, Dee Dee Myers, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos.

"George doubts he would know how to run a campaign in today's environment," according to filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker, who 16 years ago directed the movie of the same name, "The War Room."

"Once again, Democrats have a young, unknown candidate, Barack Obama. But now it is YouTube and the Internet that are redefining campaigns in ways, both good and bad, unimaginable in 1992."

So for 2008 the two directors revisited the legendary cast of the 1992 production to ask how presidential campaigns have changed. The result is a new documentary, "The Return of the War Room," which airs Monday, Oct. 13, at 9 p.m. on the Sundance Channel.

"Our first stop was James and George, but there were many more whose stories formed that campaign," says the pair in a joint statement, including Rahm Emanuel, Mickey Kantor, Mandy Grunwald, Mary Matalin and Frank Luntz. "In the end what pleased us the most was that the camaraderie and strong friendships formed 16 years ago in that war room were stronger than ever. Many of them speak to each other first thing every day."

Or as Mr. Emanuel, now an Illinois congressman, puts it: "It's a conversation that never ended."

RISING WAVE

Don't give up yet, but Republicans as a whole could lose elections for the next three decades.

On the heels of a USA Today/MTV/Gallup poll revealing that 75 percent of young registered voters are firmly behind Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for president, author Eric Greenberg is now predicting that the budding "Millenial Generation" - Americans born between 1980 and 2000 - are about to take America's political landscape by storm.