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For the Children

Wednesday, January 14th, 2004

So we’ve all been hearing the harangues from the right about those two awful commercials submitted to MoveOn’s anti-Bush TV commercial contest that compared Bush to Hitler (of more than 1,500 submitted, by the way).

Well, here’s your winner. It’s one of the best political ads I’ve ever seen, and probably the first time anyone took the “for the children” angle with just cause.

I can’t really even see how conservatives could have a quarrel with it.

UPDATE: This one is pretty funny.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2004 at 5:57 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

19 Responses to “For the Children”

  1. #1 |  David |  January 14th, 2004 at 6:39 pm

    As someome remarked in another blog, the problem with the ad is it’s only effective for the democrats if they’re going to spell out where the trillion dollars is coming from: from program cuts or increased taxation. Obviously from the conservative POV, the desired outcome would be from the first; from the Demo point, it’s very unlike you’re going to hear big calls for spending cuts.

  2. #2 |  new girl |  January 14th, 2004 at 7:13 pm

    I actually saw this on the Move On website last night. They are trying to raise enough money to air the ad during the Superbowl, which would be intersting to say the least.

  3. #3 |  PJ Doland |  January 14th, 2004 at 8:20 pm

    I have an overwhelming desire to re-edit the ad:

    “Guess who’s going to have to work to pay for your social security benefits?”

  4. #4 |  Joe Sims |  January 14th, 2004 at 8:50 pm

    Interesting article in this week’s Pitch, Kansas City’s local alternative paper. It tells the tale of a Mark Cuenca, a former KU journalism instructor who pulled his ad from the MoveOn contest, even though it was a top 15 finalist.

    Here’s the link, if anyone is interested:

    http://www.pitch.com/issues/2004-01-15/stline.html/1/index.html

  5. #5 |  Joe Sims |  January 14th, 2004 at 8:52 pm

    my bad, I meant “Mike”, not “Mark”…

  6. #6 |  Jeremy Scharlack's Blog |  January 15th, 2004 at 1:06 am

    We have a winner

    … in the Bush in :30 contest: Child’s Play. The writer was unsurprisingly an advertising creative. Charlie Fisher is the creative director at Leo Barnett in Copenhagen (Thanks to adland for the link), although he is originally from Denver. As…

  7. #7 |  Jeremy Scharlack's Blog |  January 15th, 2004 at 1:07 am

    We have a winner

    … in the Bush in :30 contest: Child’s Play. The writer was unsurprisingly an advertising creative. Charlie Fisher is the creative director at Leo Barnett in Copenhagen (Thanks to adland for the link), although he is originally from Denver. As…

  8. #8 |  Joshua Claybourn's Domain |  January 15th, 2004 at 1:17 am

    For the Children

    I’m going to join with Balta in asking why the hell this didn’t get press coverage:The U.S. National Debt has

  9. #9 |  Lonewacko |  January 15th, 2004 at 2:54 am

    Cuenca’s ad exploited dead soldiers for political gain, as did one of the other finalists. Maybe he had pangs of guilt, although I doubt not.

    I summarized the 15 finalists here. Strangely enough, the clips are numbered 1 to 17, and #2 and #16 are missing from the series.

    What was in the place of #2 and #16? It’s probably just a coincidence that two of the clips were pulled.

  10. #10 |  Ms. Dani |  January 15th, 2004 at 9:12 am

    That’s all they got? Bring it on.

  11. #11 |  Rocketman |  January 15th, 2004 at 1:37 pm

    I loved the funny one at the update link. You GOTTA LOVE the part where he “makes a joke of the UN” that will gets my (and others)vote for Bush.

  12. #12 |  Dan for Bush |  January 15th, 2004 at 1:47 pm

    yeah, the ads are funny…

    its funny how full of unmitigated lies and unfounded, unbacked allegations and conspiracy theories they are

    these folks just make claims, they never have any data or written proof to back up their statements, which ar all just spin

  13. #13 |  wunder |  January 15th, 2004 at 2:03 pm

    the thing about this ad, though, is that if a demo gets into office, the repubs can just pull it out and re-air. it’s all the same @$#*&%^%.

  14. #14 |  Mark Fulwiler |  January 15th, 2004 at 3:42 pm

    I’m not for deficit spending, but don’t “our” children inherit government bonds (an asset)as well as the debt (a liability)? All government spending really has to come out of ~current~ production. Government borrowing simply means less money in the private sector NOW and the government transfers money around in the future.

  15. #15 |  Pat Curley |  January 15th, 2004 at 5:06 pm

    First of all, it should be obvious that some of the biggest beneficiaries of the war on terror will be our children, so why the heck should they not pay some of the cost?

    Second, as usual, it will be the children who grow up to be wealthy who will pay the lion’s share of the debt.

    Third, there are NOT trillion dollar deficits. $500 billion is the figure that Mad How likes to cite; unless you think he’s understating things?

  16. #16 |  Joshua Claybourn's Domain |  August 31st, 2004 at 9:30 am

    For the Children

    I’m going to join with Balta in asking why the hell this didn’t get press coverage:The U.S. National Debt has

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