Posted on 01/29/2018 1:31:29 PM PST by GuavaCheesePuff
Lee Atwater, the famous Republican political strategist of the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s and a musician led Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush to victory 1980, 1984, and 1988.
I remember a couple of weeks ago, here on FR, one of you said if Atwater was still alive there would have been no Clintons or Obamas. They would have been eaten alive by Atwater's research and that Bush II would have won in bigger margins in '00 and '04.
Would Atwater be on the Trump train? Would he have destroyed the Left today (Resistance, Maxine, etc.)?
IIRC, on his deathbed Atwater basically apologized for what he did.
Apologize for what exactly? Dirty campaign tricks? Keeping the DEMs from obtaining the presidency?
Desperate tomes called for desperate measures.
He’s been dead for 26 years.
Atwater would have been on the Trump train and the combo of he and Lewandowski would have been spectacular.
These questions are kind of silly. People are products of the time they live in. In the late 80s, early 90s Trump wouldn't have been on the Trump train.
I think politics is becoming geometrically nastier. The more government power grows, the more that is at stake. Whatever Atwater did probably looks like the Boy Scouts compared to what the Podestas, Axelrod or Holder would get up to.
Yes,he would have destroyed them .....I’ve said we need a lee Atwater and turns out his name is trump...
He would have become a part of the system. One of the empty suits working to bring Trump down like Rove, Schmidt, ect...
power is intoxicating. its so dang easy for an outsider to become an insider after he enters the gate aslong as he follows the status quo..
Correct response!
Should have doubled down, but a brain tumor and a reminder of life's fragility can have unpredictable effects.
Atwater slung a mean ax, and at the ‘Rats too.
He was fun to observe in action.
I know, I know. He died in 1991.
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Sidney Blumenthal has speculated that, had Atwater lived, he would have run a stronger re-election campaign for Bush than the President's unsuccessful 1992 effort against Bill Clinton and Ross Perot. -- Wikipedia
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Sidney Blumenthal is a freeper?
Speculation is pointless. It's possible to imagine that the Bushes or McCain or Romney could have run a tougher, tighter, more aggressive campaign. That wouldn't necessarily have guaranteed them victory.
It's possible that the candidate who ran an Atwater-type campaign wouldn't have made it through the primaries. Campaign tactics move in cycles and what works in one election may not work in a later one.
Then why post an inane question like this.
The Left hated Atwater; I’m not sure why (apart that he won). So far as I could figure, his only reason for being in politics was to get on TV. He clearly saw no connection between the campaign and future policy.
— He had no intention of cleaning up Boston Harbor; that was just a convenient issue to hit Dukakis with.
— He had no intention of reducing crime; Willie Horton was just a convenient issue to hit Dukakis with.
— He had no intention of stopping political correctness; the pledge of allegiance not in Massachusetts schools was just a convenient issue to hit Dukakis with.
— He thought that getting Buddy Roemer to put an R instead of a D was a victory; the fact that he was pro-tax and pro-abortion were inconvenient issues to be ignored.
RIGHT ON!
I am posting this because he would have probably relished a time like this in American politics.
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