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This documentary released in 2004 provides incredible insight into how a senate campaign is run. For some odd reason, Oliver North, running against then-Senator Chuck Robb in 1994, provided documentary filmmakers pretty much full access to his campaign team.

The head of North's campaign team is a guy that walked the plank for implying, on behalf of Lee Atwater, that the former Democratic leader of the House, Tom Foley was gay. Now he's running North's campaign in Virginia and ends up being worried that he didn't fight dirty enough after North loses!

Meanwhile, you are privy to their staff meetings where they plan attacks on Robb that ARE nasty and negative.

Of course, North had some skeletons in his closet. Big ones, like Iran Contra and lying to Congress. But like the Busheviks, North is a bold-faced, brazen prevaricator and tells high school students that he categorically never lied to Congress, even though he was convicted of just that (later overturned on a technicality).

It's rare that you see this sort of candid revelation of what goes on inside a Republican campaign. Even the dastardly North advisors open up from time to time and are candid about the cynical strategy that is the basis for a Senate run.

Robb, the Democratic, doesn't necessarily fare well in the film, even though he won the campaign. There's a much-discussed scene of Robb trying to chase down voters in a supermarket and you just get the sense that he's not a natural born campaigner. North -- detest him as you will -- has that ebullience and false earnestness that wins over the blue-haired ladies. Robb looks like he would rather be anywhere but shaking hands with the voters.

"A Perfect Candidate" is, of course, an intentionally ironic title for a documentary about a GOP aspirant who is a perjurer and did some very illegal things while serving in the Reagan administration.

If Iran-Contra hadn't been exposed, North might be a Senator now. He's the ideal unctuous, confident hypocrite that gives off the appearance of being an Eagle Scout.

But "A Perfect Candidate" is riveting because it takes you on the inside, looking out at a campaign. The candidates, in large part, are pawns of their advisors. They live and die by their television ads and "adjustments" in the campaign.

In the end, North's campaign went negative on accusations of Robb's infidelity and alleged attendance at parties in Norfolk Beach where cocaine was present. But Robb's wife, Lyndon Johnson's daughter, stood by her husband -- and the negative ads about Robb ended up just drawing more attention to North's unseemly past.

It was a crucial strategic error, and North lost the election (Thank God).

"A Perfect Candidate" is as fresh as when it was filmed. It's kind of the Republican version of the "War Room," but, in many ways, the Republican operatives let their guard down more than James Carville and George Stephanopoulos did.

And to see Republican political consultants at work is a rare thing indeed.

Political junkies will just find this film a fascinating romp into the vortex of a major campaign.

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