From Politico:
…Deep down there is something rotten in the state of Frank Underwood. He isn’t just self-interested and ambitious. His ambition is boundless. Saying he has no principles is unfair to people without principles. Underwood is willing to do anything to serve himself and accumulate power, and in the first two seasons we’ve seen Frank do horrific things as he tries to climb the greasy pole. In short, Underwood isn’t just an unattractive person. He’s a psychopath. So why did the creators of the show make him a Democrat?
“House of Cards” is based on the British show of the same name. The creator of the American version, Beau Willimon, has followed many of the plot twists of the British version turn for turn. But in the British version, the main character is a conservative. Why did Willimon make Spacey’s character a Democrat who leans liberal, when he leans at all?
In an interview with TV Guide, Willimon described Underwood as “two scoops of LBJ with a dash of Richard III and a pinch of Hannibal Lecter.” Lyndon Baines Johnson was one of the great congressional arm-twisters of the 20th century and one of the most ruthless and ambitious politicians of all time. Underwood’s office has a famous set of pictures of the real-life LBJ working a colleague over with a mixture of charm and bullying, very much in the way Underwood behaves on the show. So there’s an element of cinéma vérité here.
But the real reason they made Underwood a Democrat, I think, is a little stranger and a little darker. And it comes with a lesson for Republicans. I think Willimon made Underwood a Democrat because he wanted us to like him….
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