Pols Ducking Hollywood Talent?

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"With all that's gone down between Washington and Hollywood, it's a shame that politicians still don't trust their showbiz supporters," Politico's Jeff Ressner notes, observing that "for the most part, D.C. treats L.A. as a gigantic ATM machine and the movie business as a means to pick up campaign cool points -- while trying to keep potentially radioactive celebrities at arm's length.

"But as candidates exploit moguls and movie stars for cash and cachet, they often reject creative assistance from the artists and executives at Hollywood's dream factories."

Like -- hello? -- Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris? A director who has knocked out brilliant ad spots for years, and arguably put together the most convincing anti-Bush/pro-Kerry spots of the 2004 campaign? A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Morris (Standard Operating Procedure, The Fog of War), working with MoveOn.org, created a brilliant series of TV ads about 'real people' (mostly Republicans) who'd voted for George Bush in 2000, but had decided to vote for John Kerry in 2004.

"This year, there are many more Republicans talking about voting for Obama than were persuaded about Kerry four years ago. See where I'm going with this?" The Obama campaign should contract Morris to do a series of spots about Obamacans, and this time actually put them on the air -- as opposed to what happened in 2004, which is that they were basically shelved for TV use and seen only at moveon.org and at errolmorris.com.

Ressner talks to "a top marketing vice president at one of the leading motion picture studios to explain just how he might help the three current candidates in each of their respective quests for the White House," etc. And that's fine. Except nothing this guy says is as interesting or persuasive as the cumulative effect of those '04 Morris spots.

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