Millionaire conservative Bob Roberts launches an insurgent campaign against incumbent senator Brickley Paiste, firing up crowds at his rallies by singing '60s-style acoustic folk songs with lyrics espousing far-right conservative social and economic views.

A conservative, Midwestern farmer rallies his neighbors against a power company planning to erect huge towers across their land, and a political activist schoolteacher helps them organize into an effective bloc.

At the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, delegates from Unionist counties of northwestern Virginia decided to break away from the Confederacy and form a new government loyal to the United States that two years later would be officially recognized as the new state of West Virginia. This historical reenactment was commissioned to mark the restoration of the Wheeling Custom House -- the actual site of the delegates' conventions, featured within the film.