No, the Bush campaign did not run the ad. Your own cite says,
Regards,
Shodan
OK, it wasn’t run BY Bush, it was run FOR Bush. I’m not going to pretend these “independent” PACs absolve the candidate from responsibility of what is aired on his behalf.
Talk about historical revisionism! I can’t find anyone before your post claiming the Bush campaign ran the ad, just that the ad was run, so you’re responding to something that nobody claimed.
The opening post asked generally if it was the most nasty election without making the convenient exclusion you’re trying to make. That ad was indeed part of the election no matter who ran it.
I agree. However, ads that are run by the campaign themselves are a bigger focus and more rightly characterize the campaign than ads run by outside groups.
My point was that that particular ad would have been a relatively minor part of the campaign, both because it was run by an outside group and because it was run for a very short time, were it not for the focus on whether it was or wasn’t a racist. When the main focus on an ad is whether it was racist or not, it doesn’t qualify the campaign as the most negative ever IMO.
I don’t have any stats on how often the PAC Willie Horton ad aired but it was indeed unquestionably racially motivated. The revolving door puts a little fig leaf on its naked race baiting. Only one black guy. But notice he’s the only one looking at the camera. He’s the only one you notice. And he’s the only one you’re supposed to notice.
Atwater’s deathbed confession:
It’s remarkable to come across anyone who thinks PAC’s do not coordinate with their candidates just because there’s a law against it.
I don’t agree at all that the Willie Horton ad was racially motivated. It’s true that Horton was a Scary Looking Black Guy, but while there’s a lot of racial prejudice out there, there’s no reason to assume that people are comfortable being killed by murderers out on furlough as long as they’re white, and thus no reason to assume the ad was playing to anything other than fear of crime.
But even leaving that aside, if you’re going to characterize a campaign as the most negative ever based on an ad, the question of how frequently that ad ran and how widely broadcasted it was are crucial to the issue and can’t be ignored.
About as remarkable as a partisan who knows the difference between evidence and allegations.
Regards,
Shodan
The guy who did it admitted it. What else do you want?
Then why have the ad show his blackness instead of discussing his crime on a non-visceral level?
The ad was definitely playing to emotion. The most effective ads do that.
The only question was which emotion: fear or crime or fear of Scary Looking Black Guys? As above, I don’t see any reason at all to assume the latter. But you can’t ask why the ad didn’t discuss crime in a non-visceral way. That’s a non-starter.
Part of the problem was that Dukakis’ idea of how to look butch and counter all the stuff about his being soft on crime and the military was to pop up out of a tank like Whack-a-mole.
It’s hard to blame that one on Lee Atwater.
Regards,
Shodan
You know how Atwater thought. Here’s how he described the Southern Strategy, by way of demonstration.
Now try again.
Why can a significant social problem not be discussed rationally? :dubious:
Because crime is a visceral issue for Republicans, and race is a visceral issue for Democrats. Therefore neither side is interested in rational discussion.
And no, the Democrats are not any better. Dukakis tried to counter the Horton ad with a commercial about a heroin addict who escaped from a halfway house and raped and murdered a woman. But somehow commercials about scary Hispanics aren’t racist.
Regards,
Shodan
Interesting cite there. Did you realize it included this?
Just so you all know.
Odd that nobody seems to remember anything about the heroin dealer ads, isn’t it? Or is willing to call them an effort to expose Bush’s hypocrisy, and that of his supporters.
Oh, please.
No need. You’ve added nothing.
It can be. But ads are more effective if they have visceral appeal, and if you forgo them you will lose to someone who doesn’t. So no one does.
I was barely two years old so I don’t remember it either and by coincidence I just was thinking what it was like to live through it the other day.
Interesting reading about the election from fellow Dopers. My hunch has always been that George HW Bush was one boring president in terms of personality. Can anyone confirm?
More competent than Reagan if I may ask?
I’ll take that as a grudging concession. :dubious:
Then it’s not a “non-starter”, is it?
Then you also concede that it was an attempt to appeal viscerally. Let’s not have any more handwringing from you deploring the low state of electoral politics, either.
Looks like you’ve gone as far as you’re going to here.
. . . Republicans.