TV Ad Contest Targets President

One ad portrays President Bush as an anti-Robin Hood who steals from infants and old men to serve rich corporations. In another, his prewar assertions about then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein make a set of lie-detector needles go haywire.

Yet another shows kids working as dishwashers, maids and garbage collectors, asking: “Guess who’s going to pay off President Bush’s $1 trillion deficit?”

Fourteen in all, the TV spots aim to depict the anger and frustration many Democrats harbor toward the Bush administration. But they’re not the work of any slick political ad firms -- they’re finalists in a nationwide contest sponsored by MoveOn.org, a popular Internet-based political action group.

The “Bush in 30 Seconds” competition, which drew entrants ranging from amateur home video enthusiasts to professional filmmakers, will be judged Monday by a celebrity panel in New York. Several of the top-ranked ads will be shown nationwide on cable TV during the week of Bush’s State of the Union address, which is scheduled for Jan. 20.

The MoveOn.org contest spotlights the aggressive and uncharted role special interest groups not linked to either party are expected to play in the 2004 presidential campaign. Some say it also shows how such Internet-based groups could contribute to the spread of unfiltered messages in American politics.

Angry Republicans last week cried foul over the ad campaign -- expressing outrage that two of 1,500 entries compared Bush and his policies to Adolf Hitler. Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, characterized the two ads as “the most vile form of political hate speech.” He called for an apology from contest sponsors and a disavowal of the spots from the nine Democratic presidential candidates.

“The power of the Internet lies in its democratizing force. But this kind of democracy can be brilliant and it can be scary,” said Tracy Westen, executive director of the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit research group that studies politics and the media. “Through the Web, millions of people can contribute to politics in ways they couldn’t before. But along with the geniuses, you’ve also got the nuts.”

Democrats say the Internet ad contest tapped into a wellspring of political activism.

“We’ve got a treasure trove of creative ideas here,” said MoveOn.org founder Wes Boyd of Berkeley, whose group claims more than 2 million U.S. followers. “We’re in touch with all of these talented, powerful, resourceful people who want to make a difference. Now we’ve got to decide how we unleash that resourcefulness.”

MoveOn.Org, which was started in 1998 with a plea to Congress to “move on” from its impeachment case against President Clinton, last year raised more than $10 million for Democratic Party causes. The group already has run numerous national TV ads critical of the Bush administration.

The grass-roots ad contest invited entrants to produce a 30-second spot that told “the truth about the president and his policies.” The ads were posted 20 at a time for two weeks each. Some 2.9 million votes were cast to select the finalists, organizers say.

Eli Pariser, who directed the ad contest, characterized many of the 1,500 entries as “America’s most political home videos.”

One shows a man interviewing his 90-year-old grandmother, a lifelong Republican, on why she won’t be voting for Bush in November. Another features a man named “Al Keyda” thrown into jail without rights or a lawyer under terms of the Patriot Act. A series of spots -- entitled “What if the Bush administration were your roommate?” -- depicts two college-age men coping with a bossy apartment mate.

Organizers first intended to select one winning ad, but Boyd said the group now plans to run spots from different categories: funniest, best animated and best youth ad. “We knew the humor and the brilliance was out there,” he said. “Wow, is it out there.”

Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile, one of the contest’s 15 judges, said the entries could represent the future of political advertising.

“The Democrats needed help -- all they did was the same old, same old,” she said. “Social Security, prescription drugs. Some of these ads are very edgy. I like the fact that some are willing to go out of the box and use children to make their point.”

Other judges include documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, actress Janeane Garofalo, comedian Margaret Cho and recording artist Moby.

Contest finalists include David Haynes of Dallas, a politically moderate filmmaker who said he is tired of the administration.

The MoveOn.org contest gave him a way to express that. In his ad, a computer mouse on a screen bearing the presidential seal drags icons representing the Social Security program, the federal budget surplus and other items into the trash bin.

“The way things are going right now, we’re in a time where people have to get involved at every level,” said Haynes.

Bay Area computer graphics artist Nathania Vichnevsky and her partner, Rick Glumac, figured the best way to reach people was with humor.

She and Glumac, a special-effects developer, bought a Bush mask at a local costume store, along with an elf’s outfit. At a cost of $60, their ad, entitled “Hood Robbin’,” was filmed in San Francisco and shows Bush stealing from the poor.

Vichnevsky’s father plays a cameo role as an elderly man who has his pockets fleeced by the Bush character. Glumac also convinced a friend to play a character who is shown in his underwear after Bush pulls off his bedroom curtain, a slap on the Patriot Act’s impact on privacy.”It took eight takes to get the bedroom scene right,” he said. “This was so much fun. And to quote Plato, ‘If you don’t participate in politics, then you’re destined to be governed by inferiors.’ ”

MoveOn.org officials agreed the ads featuring Hitler were “in poor taste,” but noted that the offending spots were not selected as finalists. They also promised to improve the screening process of any future public solicitations.

One of the controversial ads contrasts footage of Hitler speaking and Nazi troops marching with clips of Bush at his inauguration, saying, “What were war crimes in 1945 is foreign policy in 2003.”

While none of the Democratic candidates have responded to the GOP calls that they condemn the two ads, others have fired back at Republicans for their own divisive TV spots. In 2002, for instance, GOP ads attacking Democrats in some Senate and House races included images of Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

“This is the silliest thing I’ve seen in recent American politics,” James Carville, a political consultant and former Clinton advisor who also is a contest judge, said of the Hitler flap. “Two people send in some misguided stuff on a computer -- that’s all it was.”

He criticized Republicans for briefly running the ads on their website. RNC spokeswoman Christine Iverson responded: “People have a right to see what is so offensive.”