Word: hortons
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...wave of women to go to law school, a prominent partner in a major law firm, rated one of the top 100 lawyers in the country -- there is no doubt that she is her husband's professional and intellectual equal. But is this reason to turn her into "Willary Horton" for the '92 campaign, making her an emblem of all that is wrong with family values, working mothers and modern women in general...
...last refuge of a scoundrel -- or of a threatened Republican incumbent. The issue is almost by definition a smokescreen, and a manipulation of voters' closeted fears and prejudices. The Republicans are wary about emphasizing race this year. They are sensitive about criticism of the way they used Willie Horton in 1988. And they have been making progress in attracting black middle-class supporters. So they have switched their emphasis to family values with a sexual subtext -- Murphy Brown, out-of-the-closet gay militance, condom distribution in the schools, sexual flamboyance in publicly funded art projects...
Campaigning is like working a jury: it takes dry evidence about ballistics, but it also takes looking into the jurors' eyes and whispering darkly about drifters, fast women and empty streets. In 1988 Bush promised "no new taxes," but the television picture of Willie Horton also helped secure his victory. Now gay groups are convinced that they have replaced black convicts in the Republican demonology...
...time when "the gay-rights movement has become much more aggressive." But gay leaders like Urvashi Vaid, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, contend that gays are simply the latest victims in a Republican strategy of distraction. "They don't have Willie Horton to kick around anymore," she says. The ad was effective, but its sour aftertaste and the wounds opened by the Los Angeles riots have made it trickier for Republicans to appeal to racial fears...
...more likely to be turned off by such things as the gay-rights and pro-choice movements. Understanding that, Republican presidential candidates from Richard Nixon to Bush have targeted white Southern voters by stressing economic and social conservatism -- including thinly veiled appeals to racism, like the notorious Willie Horton ads of 1988. The results have been divisive but spectacular. Since 1968, except when Carter won in '76, G.O.P. presidential candidates have owned the South and the Democrats have seen their once secure Southern base shrink until its mainstays were blacks and poor whites. This year the task facing Clinton...