New Full-Length Trailer: “The Choice 2012”

Come Nov. 6, voters are going to have two very different candidates to choose from in Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

You’ve heard about their politics, and their plans for the country. But what about who they are — and how they became the people and politicians they are today?

FRONTLINE’s top political team spent the last year reporting out the rest of the story. They conducted more than 100 in-depth interviews with their friends, family, and political observers to tell the real stories of both candidates.

The Choice 2012 follows Barack Obama from his early childhood, as little Barry, growing up in near-poverty in Indonesia to his marijuana-smoking “Choom Gang” days in Hawaii, then to college in California and New York, where he moved inexorably toward finding a home in Chicago’s black community.

Consumed by youthful angst, Obama’s own journals and letters reveal a young man on a quest to discover an identity and a destiny. By the end of his journey, Barry becomes Barack, and his political future begins to take shape.

Mitt Romney began his life much differently. The son of a powerful automobile executive and moderate Republican governor, young Mitt lived a privileged life of private schools and carefully guarded ideas.

A Mormon, Romney spent more than two years as a missionary in France, fulfilling his obligation to the church. While Mitt didn’t make many converts on his mission, friends and family say that after almost dying in an automobile accident, he was reborn as a more serious man. And despite his success in business, Romney came to believe that his destiny lay in politics.

As different as they are, Obama and Romney have come to share one signature achievement: health-care reform. The Choice 2012 investigates how each man approached the hot-button issue, and what it says about how they governed — Romney, as the Republican leader of the blue state of Massachusetts, and Obama as the nation’s first black president.

View a preview of the film above, then tune in Oct. 9 to watch the full documentary — check listings here — or stream it online right here.