The truth behind fake political ads
In this campaign season "Trust Me" is the message of every candidate's TV ad -- a proposition Dean Reynolds now puts to the test:
If you're lucky enough to live in Iowa or New Hampshire, political ads are just about all you see on television now. After a while they all begin to sound the same.
Except for this one:
"Hi, I'm Gil Fulbright, and the people who bankroll my political career tell me I'm running for President. So here I am! ... I may not be qualified to be President, but a dramatic camera angle can make me LOOK like a president -- a president with the conviction to nod, the courage to point. ...
"Ideas, policies, morals? These are things I don't need. What I need is $2 billion."
"Honest Gil" Fulbright isn't a real candidate. He's an actor, and Gil's campaign for the White House is a satire that's been viewed more than three million times on social media.
It makes you chuckle, but there is a serious point to his pitch.
"He's just shining a light on how politicians are routinely being bribed by special interest lobbyists, and swaying their votes in their favor, and the people who are left out are we, the American people," said Josh Silver, the director of represent.us, the grassroots organization behind Gil Fulbright that's working to pass laws combating the influence of moneyed interests in American politics.
"To be successful," said Reynolds, "you would need to have these guys in Congress vote against their self interest, right?"
"Well, that's why we're doing what we're doing," Silver said.
He's talking about the strategy to basically end-run Washington and begin by focusing on local government -- building a movement from the ground up.
"We know that Washington is not going to fix this problem any time soon," Silver said. "They don't fix anything any time soon these days! The only place that there's a bright light right now is in the cities and states."
From its office in Florence, Mass., represent.us brought together an unlikely alliance. The group's advisors include Republicans, Democrats, prominent members of Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party -- even disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who served several years in federal prison after being convicted of conspiracy to bribe Members of Congress.
Dan Krassner, the political director of represent.us, sees it as a bipartisan issue: "I'm a Republican, and conservatives are fed up with the amount of corruption, the fraud, the waste and abuse in government. We're all essentially paying a corruption tax because of those problems in government. So we want reform."
Represent.us wants to stop elected officials taking money from special interests they regulate; bar them from taking jobs as lobbyists after leaving office (at least for several years); limit their donations from lobbyists; and force organizations which fund political advertising to disclose their donors.
"We know that politicians are spending most of their time raising money, listening to donors," said Krassner. "They need to listen to us."
In November, represent.us-backed reforms passed in Maine, Seattle and San Franscisco. And there are plans for more ballot initiatives this year.
Honest Gil is not actually running -- and you can't actually vote for him. Nor could you in the 2014 Kentucky Senate race.
But he was so successful back then as a fundraising vehicle for the represent.us cause that he's been elevated to the Big Time.
"They said, 'You wanna run for president?' I went, 'Okay, sure. Why not?'" laughed actor Frank Ridley. "So now I'm running for president."
Jimmy Siegel has been making political ads for more than a decade. He was behind one of Hillary Clinton's most memorable ads in 2008, which spoofed "The Sopranos."
"Politics is easy to parody," Siegel said.
And he's genuinely impressed by Honest Gil.
"Hi, I'm Gil Fulbright. And I approve of whatever it is my wife is about to read off of this teleprompter."
"The acting okay? Convincing?" asked Reynolds.
"Yeah, I mean, actually I'd like to have him as a candidate!" Siegel laughed. "I think there are places in the country we could win."
This presidential election is expected to be the most expensive in history. There are predictions the process will cost more than $10 billion.
Gil Fulbright will be reminding us of that for the next year -- and that's a promise he intends to keep. And also:
"I promise that I will work every day to subtly misdirect that anger so my big-money donors can continue to rip you off."
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