In an interview with Noel Murray of The Onion's A.V. Club, the masterful documentary filmmaker Errol Morris vents that he could not interest MoveOn PAC in some of his anti-Bush ads. More specifically, he says MoveOn took a pass on commercials featuring pro-Kerry evangelical Christians:
I wish the ads could've been used. I kept thinking that the only way ads like this could be effective was to just blanket the markets with them. You don't show one person, you show 50 people. Make it seem as though there's a bandwagon. And one thing that really interested me is, I shot evangelical Christians, and MoveOn didn't even put those in the mix! For reasons that, you know . . . I'm speechless. It was assumed that you can't touch evangelical Christians. "Oh, they're the Republican Right. Stay away from those people. Don't even try to talk to them." Well, what's interesting is that there were evangelical Christians who were voting for Kerry. There were right-to-lifers who were voting for Kerry. And it's interesting to listen to the reasons why. To ignore that segment of the electorate is moronic. Particularly if you don't know who those people are, or what their concerns are.
Morris mentions that he has posted some of those commercials on his website. In the commercials posted under the category of Religion, only two people (Doug West and Sarah West) say they speak as evangelical Christians. Only one (Sarah West) mentions abortion:
I voted for President Bush in 2000, but you can't just blindly follow someone because they say they are a Christian. You still have to use you mind and look at the evidence. I just don't see integrity. I don't see truthfulness. I just don't see much evidence of a life devoted to Christ. I'm a Christian. I am against abortion, but I'm voting for John Kerry.
Deborah Wood, identified as a lifelong Republican, objects to Bush's claim that God is on the side of freedom, which Wood reduces to "God is on our side."
Bob Scott, also identified as a lifelong Republican, takes umbrage at the idea that Bush would ask God for guidance on any policy, which Scott believes means that "[Bush] thinks he is speaking for God."
It's too bad MoveOn chose not to air Morris' commercials. Free speech, especially about politics, is an inherent good, and political nonconformists certainly are more interesting than people who remain undecided until election day. And it would have been entertaining to figure out whether those commercials changed the minds of more than a few hundred people.