WASHINGTON - January 30 - Leaders of the MoveOn.org Voter Fund are urging urging the public to support a one-minute boycott of CBS during halftime at Sunday’s Super Bowl game to protest the network’s refusal to air an issue ad that is critical of the Bush Administration 's handling of the federal deficit.

At the same time, the MoveOn.org Voter Fund announced it will air the ad on CNN all day Sunday, including during the Super Bowl, and throughout the next week. It also will air on broadcast and cable stations in Florida, West Virginia, Ohio, Missouri and Nevada, five states that are expected to be central to the coming presidential campaign. The cost of the new ad buy is approximately $1 million.

Viewers are asked to leave the CBS Super Bowl broadcast for a minute between 8:15 and 8:45 p.m. Sunday night and go to CNN to see the ad that CBS would not run. For the exact time of the one-minute boycott and ad broadcast, go to the website www.Bushin30Seconds.org.

The Censored Ad: Cute Children Doing Difficult Work

The ad that CBS refused, claiming it has a policy that forbids advertising on “controversial issues of public importance,” already has been aired in the Washington, D.C., market and elsewhere. It was the winning ad in the “Bushin30Seconds” ad contest sponsored by theVoter Fund. The ad, one of some 1,500 entries, was created by Charlie Fisher of Denver and selected after 110,000 people viewed the ads on the internet and rated them.

It is a gentle, wordless ad in which cute children do difficult work – cleaning office buildings, washing dishes, hauling garbage, standing on an assembly line – to a background of a single guitar. The tagline is: “Guess Who’s Going to Pay Off Bush’s $1 Trillion Deficit?”

“CBS will show the world ads featuring women in bikinis mud wrestling, to sell beer. It will have ads for all three erectile dysfunction medicines. But it has decreed that a message about the federal deficit and the President’s leadership failures is off limits,” said Eli Pariser, national campaigns director for MoveOn.org Voter Fund. The network also refused an issue ad by People for Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Deficit is a Serious Issues That Needs Public Attention

"Given the Congressional Budget Office's acknowledgement of a $500 billion deficit from the Bush Administration for this year alone, it's more important than ever to have this issue in front of the public,” he added. “That’s why we're taking this ad into swing states where we hope it helps to combat the president's spin campaign.

“The unprecedented growth in the federal deficit is certainly going to be an important issue in the coming presidential campaigns. Americans can handle this kind of ' controversy, ' without censorship from CBS.”

The MoveOn.org Voter Fund is a "Section 527" political committee created to comply with the new federal campaign finance laws. It run ads and engages in other efforts to expose the policy failures of the Bush Administration.

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