The Campaign (2012)

The Campaign is a 2012 comedy film starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis as two Southerners vying for a seat in Congress to represent their small district. The screenplay for the film was written by Eastbound & Down writer Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy, and is directed by Jay Roach.

Plot: Democratic Congressman Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) of North Carolina's 14th District is running for his fifth term unopposed. However his campaign is damaged when his image as a law-abiding Christian husband is shattered by the revelation of his affair with one of his supporters, when Cam accidentally leaves a sexually explicit voice message on a local family's phone.

Corrupt businessmen, brothers Glen (John Lithgow) and Wade Motch (Dan Aykroyd), use this opportunity to convince Marty Huggins (Zack Galifianakis), tourism director for the town of Hammond and son of one of their associates, Raymond Huggins (Brian Cox), to run against Cam on the Republican ticket, as part of a plan to profit from illegal dealings with Chinese companies. Cam at first underestimates Marty and humiliates him by playing a video biography highlighting Marty's dim-witted nature. The Motch brothers then hire Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott) to be Marty's campaign manager. Tim reinvents Marty as a successful entrepreneur and family man. Marty's popularity rises due to his effective campaign while Cam's is further damaged when he accidentally punches a baby. Cam later runs a campaign portraying Marty as an Al Qaeda terrorist, and Marty exposes Cam as a fake Christian by asking him to recite the Lord's Prayer, which he fails to do. Cam attempts to restore his religious image by visiting a church of snake handlers, but he gets bitten by a snake. A video of the bite is leaked into the Internet and goes viral, increasing Cam's popularity.

When Cam's son plans to slander his competition for class president, Cam realizes he has set a bad example and visits Marty to make peace. A drunken Cam tells Marty that he originally became a politician to help people, citing that as class president he had a dangerous, rusty slide removed from the playground. After Cam leaves, Wattley convinces Marty to call the police and report Cam for driving while drunk. Cam is arrested and his campaign is again damaged. Marty then portrays Cam as dim-witted by publishing a "communist manifesto" that Cam had written in 2nd grade, and later showing a video of Cam's son addressing Marty as "dad". A furious Cam attacks Marty, resulting in Cam accidentally punching Uggie, the dog from The Artist, once more suffering in his popularity levels. Cam gets revenge on Marty by seducing his neglected wife Mitzy (Sarah Baker) and recording the act. The released sex tape humiliates the Huggins family and causes Cam's campaign manager, Mitch (Jason Sudeikis), to abandon him. Marty retaliates by shooting Cam in the leg on a hunting trip, increasing his own popularity.