The ad campaign was a "grand fantastic experience," Dawn says, and it worked. "There were tastemakers out there watching and saying 'Yes! This is exciting.' "
First, actress Julia Stiles called, then others. Dawn was suddenly fielding phone calls and e-mails from agents and rock stars and actors 17 hours a day, wondering how they could get involved. Gone was the stigma that hung over Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks for ragging on Bush. Now, ragging on Bush was a good career move.
Pariser worried that the new galaxy of stars would "usurp" the movement from the members of MoveOn. But eventually he was won over.
"I think they know it's like they're throwing a party and Bruce [Springsteen] is coming," says Pariser. "It's like the ultimate validation."
It's Showtime
Monday night was the final leg of the Vote for Change concert tour, right in the center of Washington. Springsteen, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Dave Matthews and Jurassic 5 were all playing. The event is a test of Raza's blitheness about going mainstream, of what happens when downtown hip leaves the art gallery and goes to MCI Center.
From the outside the scene is Woodstock filtered through MTV: A tour bus with a banner advertising "Wake Up Everybody," a benefit recording for getting out the vote, is loaded with TV screens blaring Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige, Brandy. The Billionaires for Bush are vamping outside, Vote for Change's "Patriot" T-shirts are on sale inside.
Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, races in with his children. "This is about mobilizing young people," he says. "Twenty-seven million of them didn't vote last time around. We can tell them over and over to vote but when Bruce Springsteen says it, it's a different story."
But Hannah Schley, a freshman at George Washington University, is one of the few people here under 40. She got tickets from her dad, a Democratic activist in California. She was supposed to come with one of the frats on campus, but the boys changed their minds. "They said it was gonna be a bunch of old people and I was like, 'Come on, it will be fun.' "
The place reeks of boomer nostalgia; it's filled with people who missed Woodstock, who were just a little too young the last time music and politics came together in one earth-shattering moment. "My sister went [to Woodstock] and she talked about it all her life," said Cameron Jons, who was 12 at the time. "Now it's my turn."
There's no profane jewelry, no slashed T-shirts and very few midriffs showing. There are plenty of the khakis and button-down shirts Raza was trying to avoid. The crowd here did not discover politics yesterday.
Still, they share common ground with the youth. For this crowd, too, politics has turned into a lifestyle. Only here the correct T-shirt is less important than the correct spirit. And the correct deity is the Almighty Bruce.
"Bruce's message and music is all about what it means to live a fully realized life, work, country, identity, what wakes your soul up," says Melissa Levy. "It all makes sense together, here, now."
Like the young lefties, the goals are urgent but limited. What passes for radical here is Springsteen actually endorsing Kerry and Edwards, instead of just hinting at it.
But after he's done with the political speech, he makes his way back to what could be the new anthem of protest:
"Meet me at Mary's place. We're gonna have a party."
