The uncampaigners: Clinton and Moore

Once again, phenomena beyond the control of George Bush and John Kerry are crowding campaign messages off the nation's TV screens.

Though flags remain at half-staff for the late President Reagan, TV airtime is now dominated by the images of two other larger-than-life men - former President Clinton and documentary-maker Michael Moore.

Clinton's just-released memoirs, titled "My Life," are flying off bookstore shelves - several hundred thousand in the first 24 hours - as fans of the 42nd president drive hundreds of miles and wait in line for hours for his autograph. Political analysts are still parsing the ex-president's appearances on "60 Minutes" and other TV shows.

Mr. Moore, the controversial filmmaker, is lobbing his biggest political bomb yet: the release Friday of his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which he calls an "op-ed" on President Bush and the war in Iraq, aimed at helping defeat the president in November.

Who noticed that Senator Kerry, the Democratic challenger for the presidency, flew 3,910 miles on Tuesday to cast a vote in Washington on veterans' healthcare - and then didn't get to vote after all, because of procedural delays? Or that Bush delivered a major speech on AIDS in Philadelphia Wednesday?

Much more important for both Kerry and Bush is whether the Clinton and Moore releases will have any long-lasting effect on the highly polarized race for the White House. Of the two, analysts say, the Moore film has the better shot: It is aimed directly at the current administration's policy, not the slightly more distant past of the Clinton years. The crucial question is whether any of the remaining undecided voters - by some analyses only 1 percent of the electorate - will be swayed by Moore's attack.

Moore himself, in a New York Times interview, says that focus groups of undecided voters in Michigan (a battleground state) were shown the film in April and came away ready to vote against Bush.

But will undecided voters, particularly in the 17 states where the presidential race is effectively tied, pay good money to see the movie?

Most political observers think not. "Who's going to go? People who want to see Moore take on Bush and the war on terror, and people who want to go so they can walk out!" says Martin Johnson, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside. "If anything, it will heighten the divisions and promote activism among the already-decideds."

Further, he adds, the film - which claims that Bush stole the election in 2000, failed to protect the nation from foreseeable attacks in 2001, and has made the nation less secure by invading Iraq - could inspire supporters of independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader above all else. Mr. Nader has opposed the Iraq operation from the start, in contrast with Kerry, whose position lies much closer to Bush's.

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