 The scene where Shumate (played by Liev Schreiber) is stacking  furniture against the door of his hotel is something that really  happened, and happened more than once. The consultants paranoia is  well founded. During the 1996 election cycle in Russia, the campaign  manager for the mayor of St. Petersburg had acid thrown in his face,  and the running mate for the mayor of Moscow was critically injured  in a car bomb.