Now available on DVD
From the film review Images - Hearts and Minds:
The title comes from the now infamous speech by Lyndon Johnson in which the president declared that "ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there." Though Johnson was referring to the South Vietnamese, on whose behalf we fought Communist North Vietnam, Davis has taken Johnson's challenge as his own. His film appeals to our most primitive emotions as well as our highest intellect, linking these seemingly competing faculties through visual juxtaposition. Without the aid of a narrator, the movie alternates between eminent talking heads, stock footage, veteran testimony, and scarily, clips from corny Hollywood agitprop. It all forms a dense weave of sound and images that relies on us to connect the thematic dots.
I didn't realize it was out; I only looked for info on the film because David Horowitz uses the phrase in his brief polemic, A New Day for Republicans and America:
Everything that is wrong with the inner cities of America that policy can affect, Democrats are responsible for. Now the decks are cleared for Republicans to begin pointing this out, to begin the task of winning the necessary hearts and minds, and eventually to lead poor people in this country who are often minorities through the portals of the American dream.
He also tosses in "party of Lincoln," "bigotry of low expectations," and mentions that "[t]heDemocratic Party is the party of racial preferences and race-baiting."
I'll try this yet again, although it seems pointless: Politics and the English Language by George Orwell.
The Horowitz piece was linked up at BlackElectorate.com, but I really can't hold it against them. I'm the one who clicked the thing, after all.