Quote by Kweli4Real: "if anything, WH was used as an example of white oppression by Black people, i.e., the Southern Strategy. WH was one of the first national "scary Black Man" campaign."The "Scary Black Man" campaign that was devised by the Republicans who picked up the Willie Horton issue after Massassachuttes Democrat Michael Dukakis clinched the nomination. In June 1988, Republican candidate George H.W. Bush seized on the Horton case, bringing it up repeatedly in campaign speeches. Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, predicted that "by the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name." Media consultant Roger Ailes remarked "the only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it."
In April 1988, Lee Atwater asked aide Jim Pinkerton for negative research to defeat Dukakis.
Pinkerton returned with reams of material that Atwater told him to reduce to a 3x5 index card, telling him, "I'm giving you one thing. You can use both sides of the 3x5 card." Pinkerton discovered the furlough issue by watching the Felt Forum debate. On May 25, 1988, Republican consultants met in Paramus, New Jersey, holding a focus group of Democrats who had voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984. After giving the focus group the material Pinkerton provided on the index card, most of the voters switched from favoring Dukakis to favoring Bush. These focus groups convinced Atwater and the other Republican consultants that they should 'go negative' against Dukakis. Further information regarding the furlough came from aide Andrew Card, a Massachusetts native whom President George W. Bush later named as his Chief of Staff.
Although commercials about Willie Horton were not run until the fall campaign, Bush first mentioned him at the Texas Republican convention on June 9, 1988. The following week at the Illinois Republican convention in Springfield, Bush began to press the argument against Dukakis by declaring that Dukakis had let Horton loose to 'terrorize innocent people' and continued support of the furlough program until the Massachusetts legislature changed the law. Bush again mentioned Horton at the National Sheriffs Association in Louisville, Kentucky and declared himself in favor of 'life without parole' for convicted murderers.
Over the Fourth of July weekend in 1988, Atwater attended a motorcyclists' convention in Luray, Virginia. Two couples were talking about the Horton story as featured in the July issue of Reader's Digest. Atwater joined them and never once mentioned who he was. Later that night, a focus group in Alabama had turned completely against Dukakis when presented the information about Horton's furlough. Atwater used this occurrence to argue the necessity of pounding Dukakis about the furlough issue.
Beginning on September 21, 1988, the Americans for Bush arm of the National Security Political Action Committee (NSPAC), under the auspices of Floyd Brown, began running a campaign ad entitled "Weekend Passes", using the Horton case to attack Dukakis. The ad was produced by media consultant Larry McCarthy, who had previously worked for Roger Ailes. After clearing the ad with television stations, McCarthy added a menacing mug shot of Horton, who is African American. He called the image "every suburban mother's greatest fear." Additionally, although Horton actually went by "William", the ad's creators changed his name to "Willie." The ad was run as an independent expenditure, separate from the Bush campaign, which claimed not to have had any role in its production.
On October 5, 1988, a day after the "Weekend Passes" ad was taken off the airwaves, was the date of the Bentsen-Quayle debate, the Bush campaign ran its own ad, "Revolving Door", which also attacked Dukakis over the weekend furlough program. While the advertisement did not mention Horton or feature his photograph, it depicted a variety of intimidating-looking men walking in and out of prison through a revolving door. The commercial was filmed at an actual state prison in Draper, Utah, but the individuals depicted — thirty in all, including three African Americans and two Hispanics, were all paid actors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton
Kevin-1222: Typical right wing, tea party asshole.
My question to you is,...."why do you keep trying"? Are you stupid?
Quote by Kevin-1222: "I heard it as part of a discuss on TV as I was flipping through the channels, and I over heard some associates using it in casual conversation. When I looked it up on line, I didn't see anything that portrays him as being a victim of anything; just an example of somebody worthy of the death peanalty."
Freckin' liar.
See this is what these right wing morons do. Take a stragety that was knowingly and purposely devised and set up by the Republicans to defeat their Democratic opponent by using the "tired & true" inbred fear and racism of White people who hate and fear Black people in order to get them to vote and people like this Kevin-1222 asswipe, who acts like a grown azz, naive & inept child (thinking that he is smarter than you) in trying to bait you into a useless and unnecessary racist debate and dialogue about Blacks vs Whites with an issue that never was a concern by and of Blacks anyway...Willie Horton?..who give a shit?...It was all a political ploy by Republicans to promote fear, angst and scare gullible White people to the voting booths.
"Oh my dear Lord! There is a n*gger on the loose! Grab your kids, get your gun and lock your doors!..BUT BEFORE YOU DO, DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!...pure southern stragety politics.
President George H.W. Bush (also with the help of his son, George W. Bush) and the Republicans devised and created the Willie Horton stragety.......Black folk never did concern themselves and could care less about Willie Horton. He was a convicted criminal in prison and no Black American in this country ever heard of him or even cared at all about him. Willie Horton was all "playing the race card" by White politicans and the precise impact of racially coded images, words and phrases. It was a racialized message coming from traditional White political studies that focus on pictorial racial cues "the infamous Willie Horton, the scary Black man" ad or on messages with an extensive textual narrative that is laced with implicit racial cues.
Nice try, Kevin-1222. Haven't you learned by now that your. B.S. here on AA.org is weak?
Go back to your right wing blogs where you are "convincing".
