WHEN CRAZY INSPIRES

For more than 15 years, I have traveled around the world trying to tell the stories of people’s struggles against oppression and injustice. I have done little work in my own country, the United States, mainly because I have not seen much hope for change here. Americans seem overwhelmingly apathetic and cynical about a political system where bribery is essentially legal and elections are sold to the highest bidder. I myself became more cynical than ever after spending a year in Washington, DC, covering Congress as the bureau chief for a Latin American news agency.

In Charlie’s story, I found a reason to hope again. When Charlie called me last summer to tell me he was running for the US Senate, I told him he was crazy. Charlie is one of the most humble, earnest, trusting and idealistic people I have ever met – the exact opposite of what it takes to win a federal election in this country. But he somehow convinced me to go to Wyoming to see the campaign for myself.

Charlie may be crazy, but he is also inspiring. He inspired four young people to give up their jobs to volunteer for his campaign. He inspired me to spend three months in Wyoming, sleeping in a tent many nights, in order to make this film. He inspired two other filmmakers to join me on a volunteer basis for nearly three months. And it is my hope that Charlie’s story, as told through this film, will inspire many others, in this country and beyond, to fight against money in politics or to take other actions to make the world a better place even when the odds seem exceedingly long. Maybe if enough people begin dreaming impossible dreams, they will not seem so impossible anymore.

-- Reed Lindsay