Nothing could capsize the unsinkable Leslie Knope — except, maybe, losing an election.

The race between Leslie and goofy rich guy Bobby Newport (Paul Rudd) ends in the May 10 “Parks and Recreation” season finale (9:30 p.m. ET on NBC). But in this week’s episode, in order to make sure they leave no voter unconvinced, Leslie and her campaign team, in the exclusive clip below, embark on a final campaign swing through Pawnee.

Before you get to that clip, Amy Poehler, who wrote and directed last week’s hilarious debate episode, talks about Leslie’s election chances, the show’s approach to politics (which Poehler and executive producer Michael Schur also discussed in here), and whether ascending the Pawnee ladder could change the town’s most ambitious parks bureaucrat.

We started out by talking about the stirring speech that Leslie gave at the end of “The Debate,” which serves as something of a mission statement for both the candidate and the show.

That final speech that Leslie gave, was that one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to write, or was it made easier by the fact that you know her so well?
When Schur and I were talking about the script, and he said kind off-handedly, “OK, I think we probably have Leslie give a speech here during the debate and shows everybody how she really feels.” And we were both kind of laughing about it, because we were like, “Oh yeah, sure, just one of those.”

But it was a really satisfying writing challenge, because the thing I love so much about our show — second to the people that are on it and that I get to work with — is the fact that the show allows us to go big with our feelings and emotions. You get to play things real and have real feelings, and talk about themes like small towns, family, loyalty, commitment — all that stuff.

So it was kind of a dream to write it, because it felt like I’ve never written anything particularly dramatic, and it felt like I was getting to write on a drama and that was really satisfying. I wrote it separately from the episode because I just wanted to kind of try to figure out how she would approach it. I wrote it and then cut most of it, and then went back and tried to kind of underwrite it. It was a fun challenge to go back and [go], “Okay, now take out all of this stuff that seems too writerly.”

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