George Clooney likes to make serious, important movies such as Up in the Air, Michael Clayton, and The American, in which he plays broken men beaten down by The System. Fortunately, it seems to have finally dawned on Clooney that he exudes too much Clooneyosity to be plausible as a small-time loser. Thus, in his fourth directorial effort, The Ides of March, he has cast himself—quite credibly—as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.