On Friday, Disney released America’s Heart And Soul, a seemingly innocuous documentary rife with patriotic tableaux - bald eagles soaring against a glowing sunset, the Statue of Liberty - and the simple aim of, as Disney says, celebrating the "extraordinary stories" of ordinary Americans in the country’s heartland.

But then, there is nothing innocuous about this moment in American history. Amid the ongoing bloodshed from the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and a rapidly escalating presidential campaign that is polarizing Americans like no time in recent history, even a bland nationalistic montage can be recruited into political service.

Following last week’s release of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, an incendiary polemic documentary that puts as its goal nothing less than unseating President George W. Bush, America’s Heart And Soul has been adopted by Republican groups like Move America Forward.

Though it’s hardly a response in kind to Moore’s passionate indictment of both the war on Iraq and Bush’s presidency, the conservative urge to find its own film-world expression is telling nonetheless: In the upcoming election, the battle for voters will take place as much in the realm of the popular culture as in traditional campaigning.

As Fahrenheit 9/11’s exposure grows - it’s appearing on 1,700 screens this week, double its initial release - both sides will be mounting significant efforts in the coming months designed to help political messages seep into the collective culture.

"The power of the popular culture in a celebrity-obsessed capitalist society is enormous," says Lionel Chetwynd, a Canadian with a long career as a writer/producer in Hollywood, and a prominent Republican voice in the entertainment industry.

"This is how we feed back images of ourselves to ourselves, it’s how we understand each other, it’s how we define ourselves. But there’s a tremendous imbalance here. Republicans are desperately lame when it comes to understanding the uses of popular culture. Desperately lame."

Chetwynd’s job is to help level the field. He serves on President Bush’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and calls himself "a principal resource for the administration in trying to understand the ways in which this party can relate to the popular culture in a constructive way."

Chetwynd has authored some of those efforts himself, including the recent DC 9/11, a feature-length film made for the Showtime cable network in the United States.

An insider’s account of the President’s response in the hours following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington - Chetwynd assembled the tale through first-person interviews with key presidetial advisers, as well as Bush himself - DC 9/11 was seen by some as a lionization of the president, at sharp odds with Moore’s depiction of Bush as deceptive, indecisive and fuelled by self-interest.

DC 9/11 is due for release on DVD in September, strategically timed two months prior to the election, but there’s little doubt that the sudden, bombastic steamroller effect of Fahrenheit 9/11 has made Chetwynd’s job a lot tougher.

In Moore, a populist with a firm grasp on the middle-American mindset, the Republicans have a formidable foe, says Daniel Czitrom, a professor of political history at Mount Holyoke University in Massachusetts.

"He understands that, these days, it’s very difficult to separate political discourse from popular culture imagery," Czitrom says.

"He brings in the stuff from Bonanza, say, or Dragnet. And that’s always been one of his strengths: his great feel for the use of mass culture images in making his points."

Across America last week, Moore’s film was taken up as a rallying point among the many vocal celebrities - actors, artists, musicians - who have traditionally planted themselves firmly in the Democratic Party’s camp.

The political action committee MoveOn.org organized more than 4,000 parties nationwide last Monday to, in the words of MoveOn’s executive director Eli Pariser, "take the momentum gathered around the movie and direct it towards activities that will have a concrete effect on the election."

What that might accomplish remains to be seen, but it is clear that MoveOn, and an associated organization, Involver, have every intention of using as much star power as they can to move their message to the masses.

At the MoveOn party in New York on Monday, The Sopranos’ Edie Falco, actress Rose McGowan and comedian David Cross were among about 20 celebrities making themselves available to the media swarm. The artist Damien Loeb and pop star Moby hosted another party across town.

Molly Lewis is the executive director of Music for America, a part of Involver, which is recruiting independent artists to mobilize in favour of Democratic candidate John Kerry. "How we communicate culturally is going to be far more important this year than it ever has been in politics," she says.

For voters between 18 and 30, traditional political messages haven’t worked: In a nation where less than half the country votes, that group is even lower, with about 40 per cent participating.

That’s where Involver comes in, Lewis says, with such things as music events, and an electronic newsletter crafted in concert with the bible of hipster youth magazines, Vice. "Young people trust their peers, or people who are culturally relevant to their lives," she says.

"A hip-hop artist isn’t telling you what to believe in any kind of governmental-propaganda way. They’re saying, `This is what I believe, and if you’re listening to me, then maybe we have something in common.’"

For Lewis, it’s just a question of getting those people to the polls. "There are a lot of people in this country who know what they think, but are so discouraged and unhappy that they don’t bother to vote," she says.

"With a cultural galvanization of the vote, we can turn this thing into a landslide."

With Fahrenheit 9/11’s early success, some have observed that the film may simply be reaching those voters already sympathetic to the cause. But that’s no small feat, says Clay Steinman, a professor of media and film criticism at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn.

"In politics, a crucial form of organizing is to rally the people already on your side, and crystallize how they view things," he says. "There’s an enormous number of people who don’t vote, so it’s extremely important to persuade them that it’s important."

Few things galvanize a mass audience obsessed with celebrity culture more than messages carried forth by its card-carrying members, and the deck seems stacked against the ruling Republicans. In spite of access to an elite level of corporate funding for campaign advertising, more subtle seepage into the collective popular consciousness is crucial exposure that can’t be bought.

"It doesn’t work for us," says Lewis of the standard tactic of campaign advertising on TV. "We’ve been saturated, and we’re cynical."

The forces are mounting. In addition to Fahrenheit 9/11 - which has a stated goal of ousting Bush, not electing Kerry - other, more overtly pro-Democrat efforts are in progress. The Hunting Of The President, a documentary examining the "vast right-wing conspiracy" against Bill Clinton, as former first lady Hillary Clinton put it, is in the can, complete with narration by Morgan Freeman.

George Butler, a filmmaker who has been a close friend of Kerry’s for 40 years, is hurrying through a documentary biography of the Democratic candidate. An effusive portrait that emphasises Kerry’s military record, it will be released in theatres in September, as the campaign intensifies.

Another, The `R’ Word, about the stigma of being Republican in Hollywood, is likely to hit home for Chetwynd. A founder of the Wednesday Morning Club, a meeting group for like-minded conservatives in Hollywood such as Tom Selleck and Dennis Miller, Chetwynd speaks of the "closeted" Republicans in the industry.

"That’s the word we use here," he says.

"It’s not looked upon here as a political choice; it’s looked upon as a degenerative disease."

Needless to say, it makes Chetwynd’s work difficult indeed. Loath to out any Republicans who haven’t revealed themselves, Chetwynd simply says there are more than one could guess. It’s his job now, then, to convince them to step forward.

"This is not a time to be silent," he says. "This is not like anything else. If you truly believe we’re at war, you better speak up."

As Chetwynd moves to galvanize the Republicans’ own cultural efforts, he acknowledges the disparity. "We don’t have a Michael Moore. And frankly, we are way behind," he says.

"We’re 15 runs down, but I think we’re only in the sixth inning. This cause is not lost. Our numbers are growing."

For Lewis the response is simple: Bring it on.

"No matter how hip or cool the Republicans try to be, their values will never line up with ours," she says.

"They can make attempts, but they just make fools of themselves."

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