Monday, November 01, 2004

This was in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on October 27th in the Political Insider column:

More mystery out of the 8th District race: The unauthorized premiere of "Dylan's Run" at the Westmoreland campaign office

Steve Johnson called Wednesday from California. He's a movie-maker. In 2002, he was the producer of an indy film that tracked the political prospects of a young, photogenic African-American seeking a congressional seat — as a Republican. That was in 1998 and 2000, during Dylan Glenn's two tries against Sanford Bishop down in south Georgia.

Through google.com, Johnson had just found out that — during the summer primary — Republican Lynn Westmoreland had grabbed frames from "Dylan's Run" and used them in a racially tinged attack ad.

Here's what's unusual: The documentary has never been seen publicly. Not in a movie house, not on cable TV, not through mail-order. Johnson said only 20 or so DVDs have been let out of his office, for film festival entries and such. "How [Westmoreland] got hold of one is beyond me," Johnson said.

Westmoreland doesn't strike us as the film-festival type. His campaign reports the DVD came to them through the mail — anonymously, we presume.

Johnson says he doesn't care how Westmoreland got a copy of the film. He's already summoned the lawyers. "The first thing we're going to do is figure out what we can do legally," he said.