'Beer Bellies for Bush' Win Votes with Stomach Slogans

Unemployed Workers Use Bare Midriffs as Billboards

The television news cameras missed them at the Daytona 500 on Sunday. The Secret Service and military police wouldn't let them near enough to to be seen by the White House press corps at Fort Polk in Louisiana yesterday.

But the four unemployed steel workers from Youngstown, Ohio don't care. They're confident their message is getting out to people who matter -- voters like them.

The four men are the founders of Beer Bellies for Bush, a group whose members promote the re-election of George W. Bush by baring their ample stomachs and painting pro-Bush slogans for passersby to see. The group says they now number more than 1,000 unemployed workers around the country whose common bonds are unemployment, fondness for beer and bulging midriffs.

Some favorite slogans painted on their stomachs at recent appearances:

Jiggle Your Gut for Bush

I May Be Fat, But I'll Vote for Bush

Rub This Buddha for Bush

Hoist Another Brew for Dubya

Foaming at the Mouth for Bush

"We'd all been to the unemployment office to sign the log and we were sittin' around the bar at Pulaski's Tavern back in Youngstown," recalled Gilbert Ellison, 54, yesterday as he stood, stomach bared and sloganed, outside the main gate at Fort Polk, near Leesville, Louisiana, where Bush was expected to deliver a campaign speech.

"Ole Senator Kerry was on the television talkin' at us down his long nose, sayin' he's gonna create jobs for us workin' men. We look at one another and says, 'Yeah, right.'"

Ellison, Edward Kirkpatrick, 58; Raymond Johnson, 53; and Sherman Masterson, 54, each took an extra large gray sweatshirt and cut the front out to expose their stomachs. Then they used finger paints to write slogans on each other's exposed skin.

"We ran into problems right away, hair, for example," Ellison said. "So we shaved our stomachs. Then we found that after a little while the finger paints would run 'casue of the body heat."

They experimented with lipstick (hard to remove), oil-based house paint (too long to dry) and poster paint (tended to flake off after drying).

"We finally hit on acrylic paint," he said. "The slogan lasts two or three days and it's still there after a shower. It comes off real easy with turpentine."

The men write on each other's stomachs, since writing on one's own stomach requires special dexterity. Johnson has emerged as the best stomach writer.

Masterson's wife, Edith, a seamstress, came up with the idea that began to bring attention to Beer Bellies for Bush. She sewed zippers into both sides of a sweatshirt and then cut the windows into the midriffs. This allows several Beer Bellies to zip themselves together like Siamese twins joined at the side.

"You have to learn how to walk together and how to turn, that's the hard part, turning together," Ellison said. "But when we started appearing zipped together... Wow!"

The most members zipped together so far is eight. The standard is four. The four founders made their first public appearance zipped together in January when they entered a Saturday talent show at a mall in the Youngstown suburbs.

"We had it won hands down," Ellison recalled. "People were fallin' all over themselves laughin'. Then mall security showed up and said political advertising wasn't allowed and escorted us out to our cars. That's when we knew we had a winnin' formula."

The four created quite a stir at the Daytona 500. They appeared zipped together and the four messages on their stomachs were synchronized. The left most message read: "I jiggle for Bush." The next one read: "I jiggle more than he does." Then: "I'm the best jiggler for Bush." The final one read: "I don't jiggle. I just vote for Bush."

"When Bush was walkin' along the rail at Daytona shakin' folks' hands, we was tryin' to maneuver in there to get close," Ellison said. "But I think we was too weirdo looking for the Secret Service and a couple of them boys pushed us back."

The four Bush Bellies were hopeful yesterday that their visit to Fort Polk might land them on the front page of the Leesville Daily Leader, the local newspaper. A reporter interviewed them and took pictures.

Ellison said they were negotiating an appearance on NBC's "The Today Show." He said the program's producers had agreed to fly them to New York and put them up "in a good hotel", but discussions were still underway regarding what the four men would write on their stomachs.

"NBC wants to control the message," Ellison said. "We keep tellin' 'em that only we can speak for our stomachs."

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