# In preparation for the next "Willie Horton" ad **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 23, 2008, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528 "2008-04-23T11:10:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/1 "2008-04-23T11:10:47Z")
I’m assuming Obama will win and the shouts of “Willie Horton” will be heard far and wide this fall in reaction to anything the Dems can’t react to on the substance. My question… what was wrong with the first Willie Horton ad? Were there white murders that could have been used instead? Was there a high school graduation picture that could have been used instead of a mug shot? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/2 "2008-04-23T13:03:55Z")
[QUOTE=What the … !!!] My question… what was wrong with the first Willie Horton ad? [/QUOTE] That it was a calculated appeal to the voters’ basest fears and hatreds. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/3 "2008-04-23T13:13:13Z")
[By Al Gore](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton). Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/4 "2008-04-23T13:22:38Z")
And you know, **What the … !!!,** it’s [funny you should bring this up today:](http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?pid=314260) > [@](#): > > . . . According to Time Magazine’s Michael Scherer, Floyd Brown, the creator of the infamous Willie Horton ad–credited with sinking Michael Dukakis’s candidacy in 1988–is launching a new ad campaign against Obama. > > Scherer reports that Brown “has started four organizations to serve as front groups, plans to blast out a fundraising email to between 3 and 7 million conservatives, and debuted his first ad, which tries to argue that Obama is weak on crime, and therefore weak on terrorism.” > > The ad, set to run in North Carolina, all-but accuses Obama of murder. > > Writes Scherer: > > > [@](#): > > > > The new ad recounts the deaths of three Chicago residents in 2001 at the hands of criminal gangs. “That same year, a Chicago state senator named Barack Obama voted against expanding the death penalty for gang-related murders,” an ominous female narrator intones. “So the question is, can a man so weak in the war on gangs be trusted in the war on terror?” > > It’s tempting to ignore material this fringy and disgusting. But since the ad is likely to spread across the media, particularly in conservative circles, some context is in order. > > In 2001, when Obama voted against expanding the death penalty for gang-related murders, the practice itself was widely discredited in the state of Illinois. The state’s Republican Governor, George Ryan, placed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2000, after 13 men on death row were found to be innocent and cleared of the accused crimes. The sentences of 156 death row inmates were subsequently commuted in 2003. “This is shaping up to be one of the great civil rights struggles of our time,” Ryan said. That same year, the right-leaning Chicago Tribune editorial page won a Pulitzer for its series of editorials against the death penalty. > > Ryan vetoed the bill in question in 2001, writing that “its efforts are misdirected in light of existing laws, constitutional concerns and our past history of erroneously sentencing individuals to death.” Obama concurred. “There’s a strong overlap between gang affiliation and young men of color,” Obama explained. “I think it’s problematic for them to be singled out as more likely to receive the death penalty for carrying out certain acts than are others who do the same thing.” > > The new ad, of course, is intending to scare, not inform. It’s affiliated with a website called [ExposeObama.com](http://ExposeObama.com), which was registered by Floyd Brown and is run by Bruce Hawkins, a former field organizer for Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson who recently worked for Mike Huckabee in Iowa. According to public records, Hawkins filed for bankruptcy in 2005 and the IRS filed tax liens against him for $159,180 that year and again in 2007 for $245,000. It’s unclear whether he’s since resolved the issue. > > Yet Brown and Hawkins can’t simply be dismissed as a bunch of crackpots (even if they are). Their website lists the same address as the Impacto Group in Washington, a Hispanic media firm run by Leslie Sanchez, prominent GOP talking head who’s worked for the RNC and the Bush White House. The original head of research & development for Impacto was GOP pollster Lance Tarrance, a senior strategist for John McCain’s Straight Talk America PAC. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/5 "2008-04-23T14:24:53Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] [By Al Gore](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton). Regards, Shodan [/QUOTE] He first mentioned it, but it was the Pub team who took it and ran: > [@](#): > > The first person to mention the Massachusetts furlough program in the 1988 presidential campaign was Al Gore. During a debate at the Felt Forum sponsored by the New York Daily News, Gore took issue with the furlough program and brought up the Horton incident. > > Republicans would pick up the Horton issue after 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.”[3] Media consultant Roger Ailes remarked “the only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it.”[4] ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/6 "2008-04-23T14:31:32Z")
So, the one who came up with the idea to make a calculated appeal to the voters’ basest fears and hatreds was Al Gore. And the only thing wrong with it was that it didn’t work for him. As ever, IOKIADDI. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/7 "2008-04-23T14:34:11Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] That it was a calculated appeal to the voters’ basest fears and hatreds. [/QUOTE] How can that be the standard? Even Jessie Jackson said that black people scare him when he’s walking down a street and looks over his shoulder. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/8 "2008-04-23T14:35:11Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] So, the one who came up with the idea to make a calculated appeal to the voters’ basest fears and hatreds was Al Gore. And the only thing wrong with it was that it didn’t work for him. As ever, IOKIADDI. [/QUOTE] You don’t see the difference between mentioning a policy matter during a debate and relentlessly running a race-baiting fear-mongering ad? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/9 "2008-04-23T14:38:20Z")
[QUOTE=What the … !!!] Even Jessie Jackson said that black people scare him when he’s walking down a street and looks over his shoulder. [/QUOTE] I don’t recall him trying to use **that** to get elected to anything. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/10 "2008-04-23T14:56:59Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] You don’t see the difference between mentioning a policy matter during a debate and relentlessly running a race-baiting fear-mongering ad? [/QUOTE] Also, Gore mentioned the furlough **program** but never mentioned Horton by name ([Cite](http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/01/26/dem.debate/index.html), about halfway down - search for “horton”). ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/11 "2008-04-23T14:59:01Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I don’t recall him trying to use **that** to get elected to anything. [/QUOTE] Isn’t how people react to a perfectly factual ad the point? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/12 "2008-04-23T15:03:58Z")
[QUOTE=What the … !!!] Isn’t how people react to a perfectly factual ad the point? [/QUOTE] :rolleyes: No. How people react to this sort of thing is the point: > [@](#): > > Beginning on September 21, 1988, the Americans for Bush arm of the National Security Political Action Committee, 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 went back and added a menacing mug shot of Horton, who is African-American. He called the image “every suburban mother’s greatest fear.” The ad was run as an independent expenditure, separate from the Bush campaign, which claimed, as is legally required, not to have had any role in its production. > > On October 5, a day after the “Weekend Passes” ad was taken off the airwaves, and also the date of the infamous 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. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/13 "2008-04-23T15:44:12Z")
My reaction on Willie Horton was always: “Wait! You mean Willie Horton **didn’t** commit those crimes? Dukakis **didn’t** preside over a furlough program? Oh. Wait. The assertions were true? Then WTF is the problem?” About half of violent criminals in America are black men. Half are white or other. My math skills tell me that means there is a 50% chance that a candidate looking for a poster boy to attack his opponent on law and order points (surely a legitimate issue in an election) will find the most egregious story involves a black dude. It was hardly a reach to pick Willie Horton, a horrible, horrible person, or to associate him with Dukakis-implemented policies. In Texas, the poster boy for lenient parole policies is/was Kenneth McDuff. If I were running against whoever oversaw those policies, I’d have plastered his face on every ad, and would have been right (or at least, not racist) to do so. > **[Kenneth McDuff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Allen_McDuff)** > > Kenneth Allen McDuff (March 21, 1946 – November 17, 1998) was an American serial killer. He was convicted in 1966 of murdering 16-year-old Edna Sullivan, her boyfriend, 17-year-old Robert Brand, and Brand's cousin, 15-year-old Mark Dunnam, who was visiting from California. They were all strangers whom McDuff abducted after noticing Sullivan. McDuff repeatedly raped her before breaking her neck with a broomstick. > McDuff was given three death sentences that were reduced to life imprisonment conseq... I hope no one would have considered me an anti-white racist for that. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/14 "2008-04-23T15:49:26Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] :rolleyes: No. How people react to this sort of thing is the point: [/QUOTE] So if instead of “every suburban mother’s greatest fear” he had said “even Jessie Jackson’s greatest fear” it would have been ok? ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/15 "2008-04-23T16:02:21Z")
[QUOTE=What the … !!!] Was there a high school graduation picture that could have been used instead of a mug shot? [/QUOTE] I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that Willie Horton didn’t graduate high school. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/16 "2008-04-23T16:12:06Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84] I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that Willie Horton didn’t graduate high school. [/QUOTE] Then they should have used the National Honor Society, church choir, or Boy Scout pictures! F’ing racists. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/17 "2008-04-23T17:08:30Z")
[QUOTE=Huerta88] My reaction on Willie Horton was always: “Wait! You mean Willie Horton **didn’t** commit those crimes? Dukakis **didn’t** preside over a furlough program? Oh. Wait. The assertions were true? Then WTF is the problem?” [/quote] Dukakis inherited and abolished the program. > [@](#): > > About half of violent criminals in America are black men. Half are white or other. My math skills tell me that means there is a 50% chance that a candidate looking for a poster boy to attack his opponent on law and order points (surely a legitimate issue in an election) will find the most egregious story involves a black dude. It was hardly a reach to pick Willie Horton, a horrible, horrible person, or to associate him with Dukakis-implemented policies. Your math skills are a little limited. First, you are assuming that selection of an egregious violent criminal is stochastic. Even if it were true that 50% of violent criminals are black, it does not follow that 50% of the most egregious violent criminals are also black. This may or may not be true; one simply does not follow from the other. More importantly, the ad was incredibly dishonest because the actual recidivism rate from the furlough program was incredibly low. I am by no means a defender of this program, but a slightly honest observer would do well to note that the MA weekend furlough program had a significantly lower recidivism rate than the national average. There were only 426 escapees of 117,786 prisoners in the program while Willie Horton was serving. Of these 426, only 11 of them committed any crimes, of which 5 were convicted (including Willie Horton). Most ended up like this [guy](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE6DC123FF937A35753C1A96E948260). So what was an ad like this supposed to accomplish? What sorts of visuals and text did it use? This is where racism possibly intrudes, not in the selection of the person portrayed. > [@](#): > > In Texas, the poster boy for lenient parole policies is/was Kenneth McDuff. If I were running against whoever oversaw those policies, I’d have plastered his face on every ad, and would have been right (or at least, not racist) to do so. > > [Kenneth McDuff - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Allen_McDuff) > > I hope no one would have considered me an anti-white racist for that. That depends on where the ad ran and whether you were using visuals to evoke without actually confronting latent racism. ---
**Author:** ![lalenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@lalenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalenin)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/18 "2008-04-23T17:18:05Z")
Wait one second. A single ad was enough to sink a political campaign? Doesn’t that imply that the campaign and the candidate had a whole bunch of serious flaws? Maybe the ad just gave some voters a convenient excuse to vote for the other guy, but in any case I am not buying that a single ad was the cause of Michael Dukakis loss. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/19 "2008-04-23T17:20:35Z")
No, Dukakis also had the Whack-a-Mole tank ad. And Bush Sr. had Reagan’s coat tails. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528/20 "2008-04-23T17:28:39Z")
[QUOTE=lalenin] Wait one second. A single ad was enough to sink a political campaign? Doesn’t that imply that the campaign and the candidate had a whole bunch of serious flaws? Maybe the ad just gave some voters a convenient excuse to vote for the other guy, but in any case I am not buying that a single ad was the cause of Michael Dukakis loss. [/QUOTE] No, Willie Horton by itself did not sink Dukakis. But based on available polling statistics, it did some serious damage. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-preparation-for-the-next-willie-horton-ad/446528.md?page=2)