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“CHILD’S PAY” AD BY CHARLIE FISHER WINS MOVEON.ORG VOTER FUND’S “BUSH IN 30 SECONDS” TV AD CONTEST

Wait till you see them on Fox news, courtesy of Georges Soros.

“If Parents Acted Like Bush” is Funniest;
“Bring It On” Wins Youth Category;
“What I Been Up To” is Best Animation

A 30-second TV ad that focuses on George W. Bush’s trillion-dollar debt

legacy to America’s children is the winner in the MoveOn.org Voter Fund’s nationwide search for the best spot to tell the truth about the Bush Administration’s policy failures. The ad also got the highest rating from members of the public, who gave it the “People’s Choice” award as well.

“Child’s Pay,” by Charlie Fisher, 38, of Denver features young children working in difficult service and manufacturing jobs – washing dishes, hauling trash, repairing tires, cleaning offices, assembly-line processing and grocery checking – followed by the line: “Guess who’s going to pay off President Bush’s $1 trillion deficit?”

The overall winner is an advertising executive who was a registered Republican until the end of the first Bush administration, in 1992. He is currently on assignment in Denmark and flew in to attend the awards ceremony with his camera man, P. Dreyer. The ad he produced will run nationwide January 17-21 sponsored by MoveOn.org Voter Fund, coinciding with the President’s State of the Union address on January 20.

“I was thrilled just to participate in this contest,” Fisher said. “When we finished editing ‘Child's Pay,’ I felt it was nice—maybe a little too nice. Perhaps I learned that you don't have to paint a bulls-eye on someone’s forehead to be effective. Most importantly, my Republican father said this when I told him I was making an ad for this contest, not knowing what his reaction would be: ‘I am proud of you for taking part and acting in the world around you.’”

A panel of celebrities and political experts helped choose the winners after more than 110,000 people came to the Web site www.bushin30seconds.org in December to rate the more than 1,000 ads posted. Over 2.9 million viewer ad ratings were submitted. The contest was created by MoveOn.org Voter Fund to try to make the political process more accessible to ordinary Americans unlikely to be hired to create advertising in traditional political campaigns.


Three additional categories were created because of the high quality of the projects submitted. The public also was invited to vote on four finalists in each category.

Best Animation


For best animation they selected “What I Been Up To…,” by Ty Pierce, 25, a videographer, and Mark Wolfe, 24, a graphic designer, from Columbus, OH. According to Pierce, the hardest part of making their ad was “deciding which Bush screw-ups to include.”

In the 30-second ad, a familiar laconic cartoon Bush figure stands at a podium while “Hail to the Chief” plays in the background. Reporting on his accomplishment, the president says: “I turned the biggest economy in history into the biggest deficit in history. And lost over 2 ½ million jobs. My good friend, Ken Lay, was in charge of that whole Enron thing. I invaded two countries, made a joke of the United Nations, broke the Geneva conventions and I still managed to take more vacation than any other President.”

Funniest Ad

Voters selected “If Parents Acted Like Bush,” produced by Christopher Fink of Sherman Oaks, CA, as winner in the Funniest Ad category. Fink, 39, is an independent filmmaker who teamed up with his wife, sister and niece and spent about $50 to produce their final product, mostly on donuts and hamburgers.

“I’m a new father with a six-month-old daughter, so I see things more and more long term – how the actions of our government today will affect the world she’ll inherit,” said Fink. His ad focuses on unfulfilled promises of the Bush Administration on public education (“George! You left our child behind!” a woman shouts), assaults on privacy and the huge deficit that will pass on to future generations.

In the final scene a child opens the parents’ bedroom door and finds the father character and an unknown woman in bed. The child’s father says: “I know it’s not your Mom, but it’s okay. She’s rich!” The tagline is: “Be a good role model. Say no to bad behavior. Oppose the Bush agenda.”


Best Youth Market Ad

A black-and-white ad of a stressed young man responding to the President’s taunt to terrorists, “Bring It On,” by Jared Ewy, assisted by Angel Sexton and Drew Adams, all of Englewood, CO, was the popular choice for the best youth-oriented ad.

Speaking in a breakneck pace associated with MTV-style productions, the fast-walking man on screen exclaims: “Bring it on? Our soldiers in a hotbed of hate. And you say bring it on to people who accessorize with dynamite?”

It continues: “I like the part about saying you support the troops, but you tried to sneak in a combat pay cut. Oh, and the lie about needing a pricey ride on a jump jet. Saddam, jobs, Osama gone—and you blowing money on a photo op?” The ad concludes: “The voters know. So, ‘bring it on!’”

The Thinking Behind the Contest

“This has been an amazing experience in grassroots engagement, and all of us have been thrilled to work with such creative people,” said Eli Pariser, campaigns director for the MoveOn.org Voter Fund. “These ads give voice to the deep concerns our millions of members have with the direction our country is headed.”

The idea behind the contest, he said, was to make active involvement in politics more accessible to people who would be unlikely, in the normal way campaigns work, to be hired to create political TV advertising. “What we see, year-after-year in politics, is the same old approaches practiced by a small cadre of mostly Washington-based political consultants. And each year the enthusiasm for politics becomes dimmer and dimmer. We want to reverse that trend, by bringing ordinary people and new faces into the political discussion,” Pariser said.

The winners were recognized at a gala awards ceremony Monday night at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. Most of the finalists were present, along with a star-studded crowd of artists, entertainers, political activists and supporters of the MoveOn.org Voter Fund.