Last-Chance TV Ad from MoveOn Needs Funding!

[Triana]

Last chance to fight back on TV

Dear MoveOn member,

With 12 days to go and a dead-heat race, it's time to pull out all the stops. Luckily, we've got a secret weapon -- a final television spot that tests better and sways more swing voters than almost any advertisement we've seen.

"He Just Doesn't Get It" was created by Win Back Respect and features their Band of Sisters, a courageous group of women whose family members served or died in Iraq and who are speaking out. It seizes on outrageous footage of President Bush joking about not being able to find the WMDs in Iraq, with a slide showing him looking under tables in the Oval Office. "My brother died in Baghdad on April 29th," Brooke Campbell says in the spot. "I watched President Bush make a joke, looking around for weapons of mass destruction. My brother died looking for weapons of mass destruction."

The ad is simple, powerful, and true, and it captures in 30 seconds what's wrong with George Bush's leadership. We need to get it on the air THIS WEEKEND -- we're aiming to air it for $1 million in the swing states where it can make the biggest difference. But we can't do that without your help. Can you help us raise $1 million today to put this ad in front of voters?

You can watch the ad and contribute securely online right now at:

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/doesntgetit.html

In the final days before the election, President Bush and his allies are getting desperate. Dick Cheney is telling voters that electing Kerry could put major cities at risk of obliteration by a nuclear bomb. Sinclair Broadcasting Corp. tried to pre-empt prime-time programming to air a special on the allegations of the Swift Boat veterans. After claiming that 527s were illegal and "shadowy," the Bush camp has now embraced them, and a new 527 called Progress for America is running an emotionally manipulative ad featuring George Bush hugging a 9/11 family member.

Out in the field, though, hundreds of thousands of volunteers are fighting back, through Leave No Voter Behind and a vast array of other get-out-the-vote programs. We're knocking on doors, making phone calls, and pounding the pavement to get out every last Kerry voter. You should join them if you can. But if you can't, helping to run this ad is one of the last, best ways to fight back and make an impact before the most important election of our life time.

You can give now at:

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/doesntgetit.html

One of the reasons we think this ad is so effective is that the depiction of George Bush as smug and out of touch with reality rings true. And it's a theme that others are beginning to pick up on and amplify. On Monday, former Vice President Al Gore gave his "closing argument" in a passionate and powerful finale to his MoveOn speech series. The address focused on this same reality gap. Here's a short excerpt:

The President's aversion to doubt is sometimes interpreted as proof of the strength of his convictions. But in truth, it is nothing more than his refusal to even consider alternative opinions and conflicting evidence. The president ignores the warnings of his experts. He forbids any dissent. He is arrogantly out of touch with reality. He refuses to ever admit his mistakes. Which means that as long as he is our president, we are doomed to repeat them. It is beyond incompetence. It is recklessness that risks the safety and security of the American people.

How could a team so skilled in politics be so fumbling and incompetent when it comes to policy? The truth is that the same insularity and zeal that makes him effective at smash mouth politics, makes him terrible at governing. The Bush-Cheney administration is a rarity in American history, it is simultaneously dishonest and incompetent.

George Bush has neutralized Congressional accountability by intimidating the Republican leadership and transforming his majority into a true rubber stamp, unlike any that has ever before existed in our history. He has appointed judges who help insulate him from accountability in the courts. He has sidestepped the press by refusing to conduct the public's business openly.

There is now only one center of Constitutional power capable of holding George W. Bush accountable. Only we, the voters, can take our country back.

You can read the whole speech at:

http://moveonpac.org/gore5/

We have 12 days left to hold George Bush accountable. Everything you've done so far has set the stage for victory -- we wouldn't be neck-and-neck right now if it weren't for you. The end of the Bush Administration is within sight. And if we all push hard for 12 more days, we'll elect a new President on November 2nd.

Sincerely,

--Adam, Eli, Hannah, James, Laura, and the whole MoveOn PAC Team
October 21st, 2004

[jean]

1. Howard Dean always says, just kick in 5 or 10 bucks if you can, it'll

really help because there are so many of us.

edit: omg, I just watched the ad - it's so short but made me cry almost immediately.

:dem:

[benito]

2. and it finishes with the smirk

Just to remind you what an asshat this guy is.

+5 points for ASSHAT!!