Posted on 09/24/2008 4:43:33 PM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
Former Gov. Michael Dukakis said Monday that John McCain's presidential campaign is using the same race-based tactics that were used against him in the 1988 presidential run...
(Excerpt) Read more at politickerma.com ...
Someone should remind Dukakis that the “Willie Horton” was first used against him by Al Gore....
He couldn't have possibly forgotten that.....could he?
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Horton in the 1988 presidential campaign
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. However, he did not specifically mention the Horton incident or even mention Horton's name, instead asking a general question about the Massachusetts furlough program.[6]
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.[6] Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, predicted that “by the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name.”[6][7] Media consultant Roger Ailes remarked “the only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it.”[8]
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The felon furlough program was a typically hair-brained idea from the beginning and Dukakis deserved to have Willie hung around his neck like a dead and stinking Albatross.
If Michael Dukakis spent half as much of his time lamenting the pain caused to Willie Horton’s victims due to the assinine, irresponsible, moronic furlough policy that he himself supported as he did to feeling sorry for himself for the outrage that someone would actually bring it up as a campaign issue, then... well, I guess he wouldn’t be Michael Dukakis...
Wonder if he still has that tank to play in.....
Is this Michael “Landside” Dukakis?
I don’t care what they call me, I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR A LIBERAL.
You remember correctly, though Gore mentioned the Massachusetts furlough program and not Horton by name.
“Willie Horton went on to torture, rape and murder innocent people because YOU, Michael Dukakis, chose to let that vile thug out of his life sentence.”
I find it interesting that, until this thread, I did not know that Willie Horton was black. I guess I should have paid more attention at the time. Or maybe not.
Torture, rape and murder is wrong no matter who does it.
Well it never should have been a racial issue but the Demagogues found it convenient to make it so. The issue was an abomination of a POLICY that allowed such brutal thugs out for weekends of “recreation” which of course could turn to horror at any time. I was living among the Massholes at the time — I well remember how Dukakis people were trying to claim it was the latest and greatest in “inmate management” i.e., supposedly such hard-core inmates would be easier to “manage” if they had the hope of getting out on weekend furloughs. Yeah, sure, and innocent citizens would pay the horrible price for whatever happened ala Willie Horton, just so that liberal “corrections” officials could say they were keeping up on the latest academic trend.
“The issue was an abomination of a POLICY that allowed such brutal thugs out for weekends of “recreation” which of course could turn to horror at any time.”
You and I are in complete agreement here. The Policy stunk to high heaven. There was no reason for this policy other than to experiment, which is the worst thing to be done to the honest citizens by way of letting criminals out.
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