Last edited Sat Aug 23, 2025, 08:40 AM - Edit history (1)

Republicans eagerly picked up the Horton issue after Dukakis won the Democratic 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 said: "By the time we're finished, they're going to wonder whether Willie Horton is Dukakis's running mate."[15]

Campaign staffer James Pinkerton returned with reams of material that Atwater told him to reduce to a 3-by-5-inch (8 cm × 13 cm) index card, telling him, "I'm giving you one thing: You can use both sides of the 3×5 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 "Reagan Democrats" who had voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984.[16] 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.[17]

Over the Fourth of July weekend in 1988, Atwater attended a motorcyclists' convention in Luray, Virginia. Two couples talked about the Horton story featured in the July issue of Reader's Digest. Atwater joined them without mentioning who he was. Later that night, a focus group in Alabama had turned completely against Dukakis when presented with the information about Horton's furlough. Atwater used this occurrence to argue the necessity of pounding Dukakis about the furlough issue.[17]

WIKI

Yet so many Dems go "Ewwww! Shame! That's not following Marquess of Queensberry Rules!" Yea, like anyone else is in politics.

Lets get more than a little dirty please. We can all get on our high horses AFTER we win. But we gotta win first and this is how we do that. Politics is a sordid, popularity contest, not a goddamn academic debating society.

We're out of power! They are doing all they can!"

We've been civil, measured and polite long enough. It's time for no holds barred. We should be just as fair and ethical as our opponents have been for the last 20 years.

There would be tweets and press conferences - if a Democratic leader was involved in any way

FBI is busy helping DHS disappear NON-dangerous folks. We now live in bizarro world where the innocents are criminal and the criminals are innocent.