or, Kane met a pretty, young opera singer named Susan Alexander and entered into a relationship with her. Then he made his incredible bid for governorship on an independent ticket, an office which, for him, would have been the easy first step to the White House (Citizen Kane). Once again, the detailed similarities to Hearst's life were astounding. Hearst sought public office after his dominance over the newspaper world was assured. The key office he sought, and which was denied to him by attacks by Theodore Roosevelt, was the governorship of New York on an independent ticket. Both of the men used dirty and abusive campaigning methods, portraying their opponents as jailbirds in their publications. Had Hearst been elected, he would most likely have become president soon after. Here, however, both in the movie and in Hearst's life, the family obsession about the newspapers began to dissolve. Kane left the running of his newspapers to other men, not taking as much of an interest in them anymore. Hearst did likewise, ending his earlier practices of obtaining good men at any cost. A man had to work to keep his job, and it could be snatched away at any moment by "The Chief" (Swanberg 263). Hearst also met a beautiful young actress, Marion Davies, and took her as his mistress (Swanberg 402). At this point, however, the two tales differ. Kane was defeated in the election when his affair with Ms. Susan Alexander was exposed by his opponent, Jim Gettys, who basically ordered Kane and Emily to come to see Ms. Alexander. Again Kane's towering egocentricity showed through when he completely disregarded everyone else's wishes and declared that only he decided what C.F. Kane did. As Gettys left, Kane flew into a rage and screamed, "I'm Charles Foster Kane, and I'm going to send you to Sing Sing, Gettys, Sing Sing!" The next day, the papers were filled with the story, and Kane lost the election (Citizen Kane). Hearst, on the other hand, was defeated by ...
