 Nearly a year before Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency on Feb. 10, 2007, filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sams began to roll cameras on the young senator. Over the next 19 months, they found themselves travelling all across the country, chronicling the daily ups and downs of the campaign trail as experienced by Obama, his family, his staff and volunteers. While Obama's meteoric rise to the White House has been well documented in the press, few have witnessed the behind-the- scenes story of the passionate campaigners who helped a young African-American freshman senator attain the nation's highest office.
BY THE PEOPLE tracks Obama's halting progress from long-odds candidate to front-runner in the 2008 presidential race. It's a roller-coaster ride that includes all the victories and upsets that were followed by millions in the media, seen from within the Obama campaign: from thrilling wins and disappointing losses in key states, to controversies stemming from Obama's associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers; from the high of receiving his party's nomination over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the low of losing his beloved grandmother the day before his final victory over Sen. John McCain on Election Day. |
