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| quote: | Celebrities Appear in New Anti-Bush Ads
2 hours, 13 minutes ago
By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Young blacks walk to a city polling place, only to be blocked by a menacing white cop. Businessmen unwillingly parachute into Iraq (news - web sites). When Americans begin disappearing from their jobs, actor Matt Damon says, "George Bush (news - web sites) — it's his job, or yours."
Each scenario is part of a new series of anti-Bush ads created for MoveOn.org, an upstart political group that uses the Internet and other media to skewer the president and his policies.
The release Tuesday of 10 ads coincides with the final 10 weeks of the presidential campaign. The spots draw on the talents of A-list directors like John Sayles, Rob Reiner and Doug Liman and stars that include Scarlett Johansson and Kevin Bacon.
Many of the spots likely will remain on the Internet, circling among activists, rather than appearing on television. MoveOn says that while it has committed to a multimillion-dollar ad campaign throughout the fall, it will test market the ads and commit to airing only those that have a discernible impact on voters.
"We let creative people be creative, then throw it at testing and see what sticks," said MoveOn political director Eli Pariser.
Benny Boom, a leading hip-hop video director, produced the first ad in the series MoveOn will release. The group has committed to airing it next week on cable channels that target urban voters.
"We've got to get George W. Bush out of office, and it's very important that kids understand what a serious condition the world is in with this madman," Boom said.
With a throbbing bass line and wailing sirens in the background, Boon's ad shows a white police officer confronting young blacks out to vote. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's the problem?" the officer asks. "No problem — we're here to vote," a young man says, and those in the group raise their voting cards.
In a playful animated spot voiced by Bacon, Johansson and longtime actor-activist Ed Asner, a flight attendant straps parachutes to businessmen chortling over war profits and then pushes them out over Iraq. Bacon asks, "What if the same men who profited from the war were asked to fight it?"
The ad featuring Damon reunites him with Liman, who directed their 2002 hit "The Bourne Identity." In that spot, various working people — doctors, firefighters, auto factory workers and teachers — disappear as they do their jobs. "Since George W. Bush has been in power, he has lost over 1 million jobs. That's more than any president has lost since the Great Depression. George Bush — it's his job, or yours," Damon says.
Jonathan Wilcox, a Republican strategist who teaches a course on politics and celebrity at the University of Southern California, said MoveOn's ads are not likely to resonate outside the group's core audience.
"These ads are artistic portrayals, cool and interesting, that play to only themselves," Wilcox said. "They don't intend to turn a single undecided voter."
Hundreds of yard signs supporting Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) have been stolen and vandalized in Pensacola, Fla., a heavily Republican region known as "Bush Country," prompting some Kerry supporters to hang signs from trees to deter burglars.
About 350 signs have been stolen, according to Panhandle for Kerry organizers, who met with Pensacola police Monday. The group has distributed nearly 3,400 signs.
Police said they would increase patrols, and Kerry supporters planned to conduct neighborhood watches, said the group's chairman, Jerry Holt.
"We have the availability, the funds and the will to replace every sign when we find out it's missing," Holt said.
Pensacola resident Anne Bennett lost four Kerry signs from her front yard before putting out a homemade sign that read, "Nice people don't steal or vandalize." She hung her latest sign from a tree limb 15 feet in the air.
"It's like you don't have a right to participate in the public debate unless you are in the majority, and that is not one of the principles on which our country was founded," Bennett said.
Those caught stealing signs could be charged with petty theft or criminal mischief, said Bonnie Jones, Escambia County supervisor of elections.
Northwest Florida is a Bible Belt region filled with military bases, veterans and Republican voters. In 2000, George W. Bush beat Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) there by better than a 2-1 margin.
Democratic Sen. Zell Miller (news, bio, voting record) of Georgia has a message for critics who contend he is a longtime closet Republican. When he casts a vote for President Bush (news - web sites) in November, it will be his first for a Republican in 52 years as a voter.
"I have never voted for a Republican in my life," Miller told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I have supported every Democratic campaign since 1952. I have voted for hundreds of local and state Democratic candidates. There is no one that has worked harder or longer in the vineyards of the Democratic Party."
Miller's endorsement of Bush and his selection as the keynote speaker at the GOP convention next week outraged many Democrats.
Miller was a vocal supporter of Bill Clinton (news - web sites) in 1992 and gave the Democratic keynote for him in Madison Square Garden, the same place he'll deliver the Republican speech. He said he supported Al Gore four years ago "because I was a loyal Democrat" but has had a change of heart because of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Democrats contend Miller's political transition was long before the terrorist attacks, pointing out his Senate voting record that has sided mostly with Republican since almost his first day.
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Associated Press Writer Jeffrey McMurray in Washington contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
MoveOn.org: http://www.moveon.org
Sen. Zell Miller: http://www.miller.senate.gov |
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