Willie Horton May Cost the Democrats Yet Another Election

There were several seminal moments in the 1988 presidential campaign between Democrat Michael Dukakis and Republican George H.W. Bush. One such moment occurred during the vice-presidential debate when Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) verbally spanked Sen. Dan Quayle on national TV. Bentsen, age 67, was prepared for the 41-year-old Quayle to respond to questions about his relative youth and inexperience by comparing himself with Sen. John F. Kennedy, who was just 43 when he ran for president in 1960. When Quayle fell into the trap, Bentsen seized on the opportunity by memorably saying, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

After some sustained laughter and applause from the audience, the best Quayle could do was whine, “That was really uncalled for, Senator.”

Bentsen, sensing the kill, then went for Quayle’s jugular. “You are the one that was making the comparison, Senator – and I'm one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken.”

Game, set, and match. Chalk that one up to experience, which Bentsen had, and Quayle lacked.

That being said, Bentsen’s verbal take-down of Quayle was more than overshadowed by two TV ads that – to a large degree – defined the campaign and helped determine its outcome. The first was an unintentionally comical commercial that featured Gov. Dukakis driving an M1 Abrams tank with full headgear, looking more like Beetle Bailey than George Patton. The ad was meant to combat allegations about Dukakis being soft on defense, but it backfired horribly. In fact, the Bush campaign incorporated the failed photo op in its own commercials that aired during that year’s World Series.

The second ad, which was produced and paid for by a political action committee not directly affiliated with the Bush campaign, helped to portray Dukakis as soft on crime. William “Willie” Horton was a 23-year-old black man when he and two accomplices held up a gas station in Lawrence, Massachusetts on October 26, 1974. Despite the attendant, 17-year-old Joseph Fournier, handing over all the money in the cash register without hesitation, Horton and his accomplices stabbed him 19 times and then jammed his body into a trash can with his feet up against his chin. Fournier died of blood loss, and Horton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Twelve years later, under a weekend furlough program that Dukakis didn’t institute but vigorously supported, Horton was released but failed to return. Instead, he fled to Maryland where he twice raped a woman after pistol-whipping, stabbing, binding, and gagging her fiancé. He then stole a car belonging to the man he had assaulted.

When Horton was finally apprehended, he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years. The sentencing judge, Vincent J. Femia, refused to return Horton to Massachusetts, saying, "I'm not prepared to take the chance that Mr. Horton might again be furloughed or otherwise released. This man should never draw a breath of free air again."

Sensing an opportunity to tie Dukakis to Willie Horton, the Americans for Bush arm of the National Security PAC paid for an ad produced by media consultant Larry McCarthy. It was titled “Weekend Passes” and when it was tested with focus groups the results were dramatic, even more so when Willie Horton’s mug shot was added.

Amid cries of racism and “dog-whistle” politics, the ad was aired on TV from September 21st through October 4th with great effect, and Bush referenced Horton repeatedly on the campaign trail. In fact, Bush's campaign manager Lee Atwater said, "By the time we're finished, they're going to wonder whether Willie Horton is Dukakis's running mate."

On October 5th, the Bush campaign started airing a different ad titled “Revolving Doors” which also hammered Dukakis’s prison furlough program. By that time, Dukakis’s once 17-point lead in the polls had disappeared and Bush was on his way to becoming the 41st President of the United States.

How dramatically did the two TV ads – and the Willie Horton ad in particular – impact the 1988 presidential election? Robin Toner of The New York Times wrote in 1990 that Republicans and Democrats, while disagreeing on the merits of the ads themselves, agreed they were "devastating to Dukakis." Dukakis himself said in 2012 that while he initially tried to ignore the ads, two months later he "realized that I was getting killed with this stuff." Even Willie Horton recognized the effect he had on the outcome, later apologizing to Dukakis for “the role I played in him losing the election.”

So, what does all this have to do with this year’s presidential election? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s open border policy has resulted in almost 10 million illegal immigrant encounters, roughly 8 million at the southern border alone with “gotaways” skyrocketing by more than 390%. As Biden’s “border czar”, Harris has failed miserably in her sworn duty to protect the Constitution – and by default, the American people – against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Not only have millions of illegal immigrants invaded our country during the Biden-Harris administration, but more than 25,000 of them have been Chinese nationals (mostly young men). At a time when China is buying up huge amounts of American farmland and property near military bases, that influx from America’s #1 geopolitical enemy poses a serious national security threat.

Just as problematic are the number of MS-13 gang members and other violent criminals who have illegally crossed over our southern border under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s less-than-watchful eyes. Some of them have committed atrocious crimes, such as the torture and strangulation of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray by illegal immigrants from Venezuela. According to a spokesperson for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, and Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 22, "both illegally entered the U.S. without inspection, parole or admission by a U.S. immigration officer on an unknown date and at an unknown location.”

What isn’t unknown about these two animals posing as humans is that Jocelyn Nungaray would still be alive today if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hadn’t let them into our country. The same goes for Christian Geovanny Inga-Landi, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador who bound and raped a 13-year-old girl in broad daylight in Queens, New York… and Victor Martinez Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who raped and murdered Rachel Morin, a mother of five, in Maryland. To make matters even worse, Martinez-Hernandez had fled from El Salvador after brutally murdering a young lady there and once in the U.S., he had attacked a nine-year-old girl and her mother during a home invasion in Los Angeles in March of 2023.

If I were running the Trump campaign, I would plaster the airwaves with ads depicting these monsters and the atrocities they committed, and then tie them back directly to Kamala Harris and her failed immigration policies. I would also run ads around-the-clock featuring the tens of thousands of able-bodied and military-age Chinese nationals pouring across our southern border alongside maps showing how much American soil is now in Chinese hands.

Inadvertently, George H.W. Bush showed Donald Trump the path to victory 36 years ago… and President Trump would be foolish not to follow it every day from now until November 5th.