Building and Loan

Sam Seaborn quotes Jimmy Stewart's line from 'It's a Wonderful Life'—'Merry Christmas, you 'ol Building and Loan'—while addressing staff at Horton Wilde's campaign headquarters. The reference evokes the Bailey Building and Loan, a community savings institution George Bailey champions against predatory banker Mr. Potter. Sam deploys the line amid delivering the White House's demand to end the campaign, paralleling the fictional entity's scrappy defense of principles with Will Bailey's insistence on continuing a 'campaign of ideas' despite its candidate's death. This nod underscores themes of idealism persisting against institutional pressure.