QUOTE from Lee Atwater, George H.W. Bush's campaign manager - he was saying what he was going to do to Michael Dukakis: "I will strip the bark off the little bastard."
The election of 1988 was one of the dirtiest, nastiest, bitterest, meanest, despicable and racist elections in U.S. history. It set the tone for the campaigns that followed in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008.
The CANDIDATES in 1988.
REPUBLICAN: GEORGE H.W. BUSH.
Bush was the natural person to be the Republican nominee in 1988. He had been Reagan's VP for eight years and had a very distinguished career: a rich New England kid, hero of WWII, ambassador to the UN, and CIA head. But many Americans didn't feel they knew him. One of the reasons was many people couldn't understand what he was saying. He not only mumbled but was prone to saying stupid things like: "I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism and anti-racism" and "I'm going to make sure that everyone who has a job, wants a job." But he had one thing going for him - he was tall.
DEMOCRAT: MICHAEL DUKAKIS.
Poor Michael was only five-eight-inches- thus proving the truth of the ancient proverb: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a short dude to enter the White House." His record as governor of Massachusetts was very good - he turned around the state's faltering economy and did a lot to help the state's most needy citizens. But he was a boring speaker and he sported the worst five o'clock shadow since Nixon.
The CAMPAIGN in 1988.
It was nasty because Lee Atwater made it so. His strategy was to portray every negative he could think of - whether they were truthful or not. Here are some of the sleaziest and most racist ads that Atwater turned out:
- He focused his negativity on a 39-year-old black convict from Mass. named William Horton. When Dukakis was governor Horton had taken part in a weekend furlough. Instead of returning to prison he fled to Maryland where he raped a white woman and stabbed her white fiance. The colors matter here because the Republicans proceeded to make the most racist attacks in modern American election history.
- To begin with, the Republicans changed his name. His name was William and he had always been called that by everybody that knew him - including his mom, family, enemies, cops, and parole officers. Even newspaper accounts of his crimes referred to him as William. And yet the Republicans attack ads called him "WILLIE."
- What kind of attacks ads? Here are a few samples:
--"Get out of Jail Free Card": Modeled after the Monopoly card and distributed to 400,000 Texas voters, this tiny mailbox stuffer read: "Michael Dukakis is the killer's best friend and the decent honest citizen's worst enemy."
--"Pro-Family Letter": This was the Maryland Republican party fund-raising letter that featured photographs of Willie Horton and Michael Dukakis over the headline: "Is This Your Pro-Family Team for 1988?"
--"Weekend Passes": A 60-second TV spot with side-by-side pictures of Horton and Dukakis, looking remarkably alike.
--"Revolving Door": Perhaps most famous of all, this stark black and white TV spot showed convicts marching through a turnstile into jail and immediately back out again. It didn't matter that the "convicts" were out-of-work Republicans instructed not to shave for the day.
--And the Republicans even tried to claim that Chicago mass murderer John Wayne Gacy would be released on furlough if Dukakis was elected.
The Democrats tried to fight back but not much really worked. They tried to make an issue of VP nominee Dan Quayle being a heartbeat away from the presidency. And they tried to suggest that Bush had indulged in extramarital affairs and had pursued some shady oil connections, but none of these had any real impact on the election.
The WINNER was GEORGE H.W. BUSH and he became the 41st president of the United States.
Bush got 48,886,097 popular and 426 electoral.
Dukakis got 41,809,074 popular and 112 electoral.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment