The land for the campsite
I'm a big fan of this film - one could hardly avoid it, who'd first watched the thing framed by the Capitol dome itself on the National Mall when it was screened there in 2004. But other posters are correct that, as much as it achieves thematically, it falls down in the detail.
My personal bugbear has to do with the driving force of the plot, Sen. Smith's boys' campsite, the contention that the dam from whose construction those dark forces in his state will apparently gain so much would necessarily scupper the idea, and the reactions of all concerned. The fact is, Sen. Paine is absolutely correct that the campsite could have been built in any number of other places, and if he'd only made that case to Smith instead of trying to frame him on a bogus charge of graft, they could all have gone home and lived happily ever after. I mean, of course Smith had his heart set on that piece of land because he loved its beauty, but imagine if there was some obviously good reason why it couldn't be used - say a plant had been discovered there that offered the hope of curing some dreadful illness, which wasn't known to grow anywhere else - would Smith still have yelled "NOOOOOOOOOOO!", and insisted that the campsite be built there and nowhere else? Of course he wouldn't, so all Paine and the Taylor faction had to do was to give him a good enough reason to set his sights elsewhere, and he should have done exactly that.
It seems to me that Mr Taylor's reaction defied belief. He must have been fully briefed on Smith's character and motives, so why on earth would he have attempted to influence him through bribery? I know what I'd have said in that meeting:
"Look here, Senator, this campsite of yours is a capital idea. I'm right there with you. Say, you know the site you mentioned in that bill of yours? Some friends of mine and I were going to put a dam up in that river, and the place would have to be flooded. Crying shame, I know, beautiful spot that it is. But we're going to create hundreds of new jobs, and completely revitalise the region - those communities can't expand without water supplies, and what we're going to do down there will set the place up for the next hundred years or more.
"But you know, me, I'm a man of my word. So here's what I'll do. I already have substantial land holdings around there, land I don't need and that isn't doing any good for anybody, so let me show you it on a map and you can pick the spot for your campsite anywhere else you want. And if I don't own it already, you shake my hand now, Senator, and I promise I'll buy it for you. And then you won't even need to go to the government for a loan, or the boys of America for donations, because you'll have the land for gratis - and if your bill doesn't make it through Congress before it adjourns, heck, I don't mind, you can just set the place up as a charitable foundation, and leave the government out of it. So what do you say, Senator - you want to shake my hand now, and let us get to building your camp tomorrow morning?"
Anyone in his right mind would have taken that deal, and it would have been a trifle for Taylor to offer it to him. But no, he had to go down the venal route. Frankly, I'm glad he lost. Fellow was too stupid to live.