2009 Essays

Afghanistan's Robert Redford Moment

Mitchell, Lincoln A.

“So, what do we do now?” This is the question newly elected senator Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford, asks his campaign manager in the last scene of the 1972 movie The Candidate. It is also the question we should be asking in Afghanistan today, now that the election– which took months of preparation, thousands of people doing everything from security to election administration to political party development, and millions of dollars in assistance–is over, and has been judged a success.