It’s Lee Atwater time for the Trump campaign.
It’s understandable if the name escapes you. Atwater hasn’t been in the news much since he died in 1991, having made a deathbed apology for pretty much his entire political career as an avatar of the Republican “Southern Strategy” that used racism to strip voters away from the Democratic Party and convince them to vote for such cuddly Republican racists as Strom Thurmond. But what Atwater was most famous for, and what Republicans revere him for, was his authorship of the so-called Willie Horton ad. The 1988 George H. W. Bush campaign commercial attacked Democrat Michael Dukakis for his policy as governor of Massachusetts that allowed prisoners out for furloughs if they had records of good behavior. Horton, in prison for stabbing a boy to death during a robbery, was released on furlough and promptly kidnapped a young couple and raped the woman repeatedly while the young man watched. Atwater declared he would “make Willie Horton Dukakis’ running mate” with the ad.
