Bush went on to a landslide victory that November. The two ads tarred Dukakis with a soft-on-crime label that he couldn’t shake. Bush would declare it off-limits.”Īfter the independent group’s ad aired, Bush’s campaign later produced a related spot called “Revolving Door” that showed convicts walking in and out of prison as the narrator explained Dukakis’ liberal positions on issues like mandatory sentencing for drug dealers without showing or mentioning Horton by name.ĭukakis campaign manager Susan Estrich later said the ad featuring Horton succeeded in achieving the GOP’s goal, “which was to make Willie Horton into Dukakis’ running mate.” That if it weren’t handled right, Bush wouldn’t use it.
“Lee also knew that he could be radioactive with Bush. Lee knew that it fit a liberal stereotype that would make a larger point about Dukakis,” Bush deputy campaign manager Ed Rogers said in the CNN documentary “Race for The White House: George H.W. The ad ends with this tag line: “Weekend prison passes, Dukakis on crime.”īush campaign strategist Lee Atwater knew talking about Horton could be devastating to the Democratic nominee. “Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison,” the narrator says. The narrator notes that Bush supports the death penalty for murderers.
In it, an off-screen narrator tells the story of Horton’s crimes while pictures of Bush and Dukakis and a menacing mug shot of Horton flash across the screen. The TV ad is now considered one of the most racially divisive in modern political history because it played into white fear and African-American stereotypes. Horton, an African-American man, was a convicted murderer who raped a white woman and stabbed her partner while furloughed from prison under a Massachusetts program in place when Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, was governor. Bush for his 1988 presidential campaign against Michael Dukakis. The “Willie Horton” campaign ad was produced by supporters of George H.W. Many are already calling it the most racist national political ad to come out in 30 years – since Willie Horton. President Trump is hoping that he gets similar results for a web video, produced for his campaign, that he tweeted out Wednesday. They’re a tried-and-true way to paint a political opponent as being soft on crime. It’s a name given to political advertisements that blatantly stoke racial fears and stereotypes. There are attack ads, and then there are Willie Horton-type attack ads.
0 kommentar(er)
