At one point, a financial planner got cold feet thinking about how many of her clients were Republicans and might drop her for doing the ad. In the end, she decided not to suppress her own voice. Another Southern Baptist said that when her father-in-law found out she was doing the ad, he basically disowned her. He actually told her he wanted nothing more to do with her. These are most definitely real Republicans with friends and family who are Republicans and they've put themselves on the line. Morris himself at the end of the piece says, "But these lives, these voices--I really like them. It almost makes you want to be a Republican."
Apparently after the RNC convention MoveOn will poll the ads around the country and if they work, will air them in the fall. Morris actually has visions for an Apple-like campaign with billboards that reinforce the ad spots and commercials that keep building on themselves. We'll see.
So cool to have the great, creative people on our side. A couple of excerpts:
Morris knew exactly how he wanted the ads to look. He would shoot them on the Interrotron, a contraption of his invention, which uses two-way mirrors to project his face across the lens of the camera as he interviews people, so that his subjects address him eye to eye, and appear on film with maximal directness. There would be no props, no music, just the unscripted "eloquence of ordinary citizens" against a sheer and shadowless white backdrop: "Americans speaking to other Americans in their own words, expressing their beliefs and their hopes for the future," in an election "that will define how America is perceived around the world and, just as important, what America is for all of us." That was the pitch.
[snip]
In January, [Republican "switcher" Rhonda] Nix planted a John Kerry sign in her yard, and in early July she found it pulled up and "stabbed to death"--torn and battered, with the words "Burn in Hell" scrawled on it. She put it back up. "It has to stay there," she said, and went on, "When my friends and family realized that my priorities, that my values were shifting in a whole new direction, I found myself arguing a lot with them, almost like I was trying to change what they believe in and trying to give them reasons. But then I realized I couldn't change them. I can only change myself." She was particularly distressed that her arguments with professed Bush supporters often ended when she asked if they were registered to vote and was told no. Nix considered such passivity to be unpatriotic.
[snip]
In the hours after the winners were announced, MoveOn collected donations for running them at a clip of a hundred thousand dollars an hour. If MoveOn's polling finds the ads to be effective, Boyd will spend millions on them in the fall. "The truth is we don't know if this will work, or how it works," he said. But he thought the political climate was auspicious. "People are pissed, they want change, and they're very motivated."
I just sent MoveOnpac a few more bucks. Perhaps it'll help keep the ads on the air.
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