Echoes Of Atwater In McCain-Palin Campaign
Echoes Of Atwater In McCain-Palin Campaign
Our guest blogger is Stefan Forbes, an Emmy-nominated director whose film, Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, is coming to 35 cities before the election.
As the director of the new, critically acclaimed documentary film about the late Republican operative Lee Atwater, I am constantly asked one thing: Will the Lee Atwater playbook save McCain and Palin on Nov. 4th?
My film, “Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story,” tracks how Atwater gave the GOP a playbook that has been winning elections even after his death. His central insight was to reach deep into voters’ hearts, inflaming emotions about race and cultural symbols like the flag, guns, and elitism. He used the media as an echo chamber to push issues off the front page and make campaigns all about resentment, mockery, and fear. In the words of Atwater’s disciple Tucker Eskew, now a Senior Advisor to the McCain campaign:
Resentment became the destiny of the Republican Party.
Will this work again in 2008? Will swing state voters like those in New Hampshire forget about an ongoing global financial crisis brought on by Republican deregulation and crony capitalism, choosing to believe that Obama is a “bad guy”?
Let’s look at how it worked back in 1988, when Atwater was confronted by voter revulsion with eight years of GOP rule. Voters disliked the WASPy, elite George H.W. Bush, the ballooning Federal deficit, the Reagan/Bush administrations’s unpopular, illegal war in Nicaragua, and the covert arms sales to Iranian terrorists that Reagan had lied about on national television.
To the disbelief of both Republican and Democratic strategists, who thought the public would never swallow it, Atwater hammered Dem nominee Mike Dukakis’s little-known stance on mandatory Pledge of Allegiance rules for schoolchildren. He also talked endlessly about a black guy who had escaped from a prison furlough, vowing to make Willie Horton Mike Dukakis’ running mate. Although Dukakis was a centrist candidate who had achieved the American Dream through hard work and relentless moral integrity, Atwater successfully painted him as a dangerous, foreign-seeming liberal elitist who didn’t love America and couldn’t keep us safe. Ring any bells?
It should. On Sunday Sarah Palin told a crowd, “We know who the bad guys are, OK?” and was greeted with cries of “Obama!” She said, “We know that in the war, it’s terrorists, terrorists who hate America and her allies and would seek to destroy us, and the bad guys are those who would support and sympathize with the terrorists.” Not surprisingly, their crowds have begun shouting that Obama is a terrorist, has committed treason, and should be killed. The GOP is also inciting racial resentment by falsely accusing ACORN of voter fraud and trying to blame America’s economic meltdown on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
McCain and Palin have already adopted the Atwater playbook. Whether it will help them win the 2008 election is still up in the air. Watch a clip of Boogie Man here:
The NY Times calls Boogie Man “riveting” and honored it as a Critic’s Pick. The LA Times calls it “hugely entertaining,” Entertainment Weekly says it’s “incisive…terrific!” and the Washington Post says “In this can’t-look-away documentary…there is more than one moment that will likely pop your jaw open.” You can see the trailer and find national playdates at www.BoogieManFilm.com.
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
My film, “Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story,” tracks how Atwater gave the GOP a playbook that has been winning elections even after his death. His central insight was to reach deep into voters’ hearts, inflaming emotions about race and cultural symbols like the flag, guns, and elitism.
Pardon me, but this was a part of the GOP playbook since Nixon, as the book Nixonland, details. Nixon also did the things mentioned above, but was very careful to leave no traces – unless he wanted to send a political message. His was a distinctly manichean worldview, and he created rhetorical landscapes that brought together many disparate political and demographic interests, to embrace his often-dark vision for the country.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:14 pmMy fervent hope is that somewhere in the world, Atwater reincarnated over and over again as a slug in a salt marsh.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:18 pmLee Atwater was good at his job – but as an expert of political poker, Nixon would’ve eaten his lunch, and made him carry the sack.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:18 pmNixon could’ve been a great President had be not been such a bloody-minded overly-ambitious paranoid red-baiting crook.
Compared to Reagan and “W” he was a liberal…
====
October 14th, 2008 at 9:20 pmlee atwater never
met sarah palin.
*
there some candidates
even a boogie man
can’t sell.
#
October 14th, 2008 at 9:21 pmAlthough Dukakis was a centrist candidate who had achieved the American Dream through hard work and relentless moral integrity, Atwater successfully painted him as a dangerous, foreign-seeming liberal elitist who didn’t love America and couldn’t keep us safe. Ring any bells?
Atwater had some of the ammo supplied by the Dukakis campaign.
Unfair or not, Dukakis’ stumble on the rape question did enormous damage, as well as the Tank Episode.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:24 pmDukakis should’ve shortened his name to Duke. And O’Bama would be as Irish as Kennedy…!
====
October 14th, 2008 at 9:26 pmgreenpagan Says:
Nixon could’ve been a great President had be not been such a bloody-minded overly-ambitious paranoid red-baiting crook.
___________
As much as I loathe Nixon in restrospect, I always knew that he, unlike Botch & Co, was actually a very bright man, and yes, he came close to being a great President (trade w/ China, the EPA…).
I would settle for Nixon over Botch, or McPain, in a snap…
October 14th, 2008 at 9:39 pmBarfly jumped on the Nixonland point before I did. Well done.
One description of Nixon by Rick Perlstein that stands out (and relates to this thread) is that he was “a serial collector of resentments”. Nixon’s political genius was that he was also able to tap into previously unrecognized resentments in the voting populace — especially the “Joe Sixpacks” as Sarah ‘Cuda is so fond of calling them.
Atwater’s is a remarkable story, though. Here’s what her had to say before he died at age 40:
My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The ’80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn’t I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn’t I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don’t know who will lead us through the ’90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:44 pmralph the wonder llama Says:
And Perlstein’s constructs, the “Orthogonians” and “Franklin’s” were the same manner of political frame as that which Atwater later used.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:53 pmGood to see he is dead.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:54 pmGreat post. Thanks for sharing the info. The media conversation seems like the biggest wildcard variable, after a flawed election process of course.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:17 pmThey say you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, so…I guess I won’t be speaking publicly about Lee Atwater.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:51 pmThe “genius” of Karl Rove is convincing America that Bush was just the kind of guy one might like to “have a beer with at a BBQ.” Never mind the fact that he was a recovering alcoholic.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:58 pmatwater like wallace renounced his right wing policies as wrong before he died. You never hear of a progressive doing that do you?
October 14th, 2008 at 11:00 pmIf that center was so private, nobody would endlessly try to tell us all about it, right?
October 14th, 2008 at 11:00 pmAtwater had a way of getting voters to trade in their own best interests for hate.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:12 pmMaureen Dowd said Atwater innovated by integrating campaign messages with modern culture. He got Reagan on MTV News. But Lee lowered campaigning into the gutter. His protege Karl Rove took a ditch witch to the road to the White House, now known as the CorporaWhorehouse.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:13 pmIt will be available on Netflix, but they don’t know when exactly.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:27 pmThe voting machines are not malfunctioning
October 9, 2008
Bev Harris, corporate fraud auditor,citizen activist and star of HBO’s “Hacking Democracy” (watch below), checks in with Alex Jones and tells him how the electronic voting systems have been designed for fraud and how we the people have transferred control of our elections to government insiders and their contractors.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:34 pmMust be because progressives are so hard-headed, Fred.
yeah, that must be it.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:41 pmback in 1988, when Atwater was confronted by voter revulsion with eight years of GOP rule
Reagan’s approval rating was 68% in Jan. 1989, same as opinion on how he handled his presidency. Bush I ran full out on a “more of the same” platform, and people easily followed along – Gore should have done the same.
The Atwater playbook faces a vastly more difficult sell when Bush II’s approval is in the low 20’s and McCain has nothing to turn to but more of the same.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:06 amAre Palin and McCain trying to egg on their rabid right-wing followers to commit acts of violence? Mike Malloy, on the radio, has suggested this in tonight’s broadcast on NOVA-M radio. Food for thought…
October 15th, 2008 at 12:32 amWhen these rabid reichwing fools get so whipped up they cross the line into physical violence, I hope they hold eva braun palin responsible since, your first amendment right do not cover insighting violence in a court of law.
October 15th, 2008 at 6:00 amWicked scary, I’m seeing this attitude where I live. I hate to say it but the frothing idiots are seeming to grow in numbers.
I think baracuddas are getting a bad rap being compared to SP and so are pigs–those creatures are a helluva lot nicer
October 15th, 2008 at 6:42 amAs the director of the new, critically acclaimed documentary film about the late Republican operative Lee Atwater…
My, don’t we have a healthy self-esteem.
October 15th, 2008 at 7:45 amI think Lee Atwater’s legacy has trashed the GOP for many years to come. Way too many thinking people have woken up with this global economic crisis and have decided the skinny black guy with funny name looks mighty good right about now. God, guns, gays has run its course. The advent of the internet since Nixon’s Southern Strategy and Lee Atwater’s guruland has changed the chess match.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:02 amI’d heard of Atwater only in passing and never felt the need to find out more about him.
This post has been made all the more illuminating by Ralph the extraordinary ruminant’s contribution of Atwater’s pathetic ‘death-bed confessional’ (as it were).
In the contemporary scene such political operatives are perhaps more public than they once were, I guess due to the need to feed a 24/7 political discussion which didn’t exist on TV until relatively recently.
The first political apparatchiks I could recognize were Carville/Matalin and of course Rove. Now I’m familiar also with Luntz, Lanny Davis and Dick Morris.
In a way the most interesting and frightening of these have not been the Republican apparatchiks, but the supposedly Democrat operatives–Carville, and especially Davis and Morris.
They represent a large professional class of cut-throat psychopaths for whom politics is simply a game of manipulation to be won by whatever means necessary. Even the ‘losers’ never actually lose, they just move on to the next election. Their moral compasses are usually blown by political winds and most importantly money and professional power.
The beauty of being a political consultant/campaign manager is that there are no real consequences to ones actions. The merits or demerits of actual policy don’t matter, only the game matters and the paycheck. Though their tactics and dirty tricks are recognized each and every election they never really lose their position (unlike some of the politicians).
In my opinion the majority of them are as much to blame for bad candidates and bad policies as much as the politicians.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:20 amAtwater is dead, gone not too many years after disposing of Dukakis in a most heinous manner. Compare that to one of those tobacco executives who lied to Congress and then did himself in by getting throat cancer. One has to wonder what will become of Rove. Does conscience, after all, catch up to all of them, sociopath or not?
October 15th, 2008 at 9:31 amABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF INCITEMENT AND REP. LEWIS’S WARNING
Rep. Lewis’s statement is clear about what he wanted to accomplish–that McCain’s campaign rallies not continue to incite the crowd to hatred with a prospect of creating social unrest and schism. That is a noble intervention and it is timely, McCain’s self-righteous indignation notwithstanding. Lewis simply stated the truth which many in the McCain camp (and some in the media) may not want to hear; but it is a statement of wisdom. He said: “George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights.” Lewis’s concern was about “creating an atmosphere of hatred.” He was not saying that McCain was doing many of the nasty things that Wallace did in his life. No objective observer would dispute the fact that hatred was being stirred at McCain-Palin rallies by words—words by some supporters and by the candidates themselves. In Western European democratic systems, McCain and Palin and Co. open themselves up for a charge of incitement to hatred. What would they say for their defense should any danger or harm result from the way they have been conducting this campaign? That is why Lewis warned that McCain and Palin and handlers are playing with fire! If harm should result it likely will lead toin unmentionable social rupture. No responsible citizen wants that!
October 15th, 2008 at 10:32 amIs superstar Palin a racist?
Check this article from The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/371959/how_sarah_palin_excluded_african_americans_in_alaska
October 15th, 2008 at 11:32 amI am truly convinced that NONE of the evil tactics McCain-Palin nor anyone else use in the Lee Atwater’s playbook, nor anyone else’s racial, hate-filled, divisive personal and political attacks, schemes and plots against Sen. Obama will prevail !
You [ Barack Obama], are from God and have overcome them [the enemy’s attacks, schemes, and plots ] , because the one [God] who is in you [ Barack Obama] is greater than the one [the enemy ] who is in the world. – 1 John 4:4
No weapon forged against you [ Barack Obama] will prevail, and you [ Barack Obama] will refute every tongue that accuses you [ Barack Obama] . This is the heritage of the servants [ Barack Obama] of the LORD, and this is their [ Barack Obama] vindication from me,” declares the LORD. – Isaiah 54:17
” I [ God ] will send my terror ahead of you [ Barack Obama] and throw into confusion every nation you [ Barack Obama] encounter. I [ God ] will make all your [ Barack Obama] enemies turn their backs and run.” – Exodus 23:27
The Lord will rescue me [ Barack Obama] from every evil attack and will bring me [ Barack Obama] safely to his heavenly kingdom. – 2 Timothy 4:18
11 For he will command his angels concerning you [ Barack Obama] to guard you [ Barack Obama ] in all your ways; 12 they will lift you [ Barack Obama ] up in their hands, so that you [ Barack Obama ] will not strike your [his] foot against a stone. 13 You [ Barack Obama ] will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you [ Barack Obama ] will trample the great lion and the serpent. – Psalm 91:11-13
I have given you [ Barack Obama ] authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you [ Barack Obama ]. – Luke 10:19
It’s time for the American people to get it right and NOT vote for McCain-Palin, instead vote for change. It’s time for this country to turn the page and seek a new and better future for ourselves and our children.It’s time for REAL change in Washington, it’s time to elect Barack Obama for president !
Obama-Biden are the wiser and stronger team to solve the crucial challenges we have in this nation and abroad !
Amen.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:46 amI don’t care what he said before he died. He still went to hell.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:08 pmObamaIsOur44thpres:
Nice try, I’ll give you an ‘F’. for effort.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:13 pmBedava Porno izle,
Ohh Thanks :)
March 31st, 2009 at 10:21 am