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Based on chapters 5-9 of Ian Haney López's Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle...

According to Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class, George H.W. Bush originally rejected the idea of using race in his 1988 presidential campaign.  However his campaign manager, Lee Atwater, convinced him race could be the key to his victory.


Willie Horton was the perfect criminal to help Bush’s poll numbers.  Horton escaped while on furlough, raped a woman and stabbed and bound her fiancee.  Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate, vetoed a bill that would make murderers ineligible for furloughs.  Bush used this opportunity to blame Dukakis for this horrible crime. 


Atwater began using the Horton case in political ads.  He never blatantly mentioned race, but knew how the public would react to a black male raping a white female in the presence of her fiancee.  Bush, who was once lagging in the polls quickly gained more supporters.   In the month following the ads, Bush gained 12 percent of the Dukakis supporters.    

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