Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 10A
l FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS Wxin—day, March 31,2004
Opinion
Wallowing in political mud
The George W. Bush and
John Kerry campaigns are now
caught up in a vicious cycle of
attack and respond.
So now we have two candi
dates bashing each other very
early Why? Michael Dukakis
and 1988. that’s why.
The lesson that Democrats
take away from that campaign
is that Dukakis did not defend
himself early and vigorously
enough from the Bush attacks
on Willie Horton and other
issues.
Recently. George
Stephanopoulos of ABC News
said the “Kerry campaign
remembers 1988. feeling that
Michael Dukakis didn’t fight
back strongly enough against
the first campaign by President
Bush.”
The lesson that Republicans
take away from that campaign
is that it pays to attack often
and early.
In case you were not
around. Willie Horton was a
convicted murderer who was
granted 10 weekend furloughs
from prison in Massachusetts
under the administration of
Gov. Michael Dukakis. Nine
times. Horton returned to his
cell. The tenth time, he fled to
Maryland, broke into a home,
repeatedly slashed a man with a
knife, and beat and raped a
woman. Horton was caught and
sentenced to two consecutive
life terms plus 85 years in a
Maryland prison.
The sentencing judge
refused to return Horton to
Massachusetts, saying. “I’m not
prepared to take the chance that
Mr. Horton might again be fur
loughed or otherwise released.”
But Dukakis was sure the
Horton affair could not be used
against him. Under Dukakis.
Massachusetts had one of the
lowest crime and incarceration
rates of any industrialized state
in the country. Furloughs were
cost-effective. They were pro
gressive. They were sensible.
Michael Dukakis understood
that kind of thing. His life
revolved around that kind of
thing. Government was based
on sense. And furloughs made
sense.
But Bush’s campaign man
ager, Lee Atwater, knew that
politics often had little to do
with sense and much more to
do with fear. "The Horton case
is one of those gut issues that
are value issues, particularly in
the South," Atwater said. "And
if we hammer at these over and
over, we are going to w in.”
Nobody had to ask what
Atwater meant by "particularly
in the South." Photographs of
Horton showed a frightening
looking black man, and Atwater
knew the media could not resist
running that picture.
And the media could not.
Every time George Bush raised
the Horton issue, the media ran
the Horton picture. Later, a
group acting in support of the
Bush campaign also ran
Horton's picture in a television
commercial. And the Bush
campaign ran an ad that fea
tured both white and black
CARTOONISTS' VIEWS ON THE NEWS
I EXCELLENT |
I CWXEySEW. I
r - \?»v\jL Sect s
* ' \ V Mk'7. v IG
/ * B™ z
~ - iV J ’ - “ A*rt>s Boost*Joutwlco5
Roger
ZV Simon
"prisoners” going through a
revolving door.
Today, the use of Willie
Horton almost certainly would
be denounced fairly or not as
racism, but Dukakis did not
want to do that. His campaign
was going after "Bubba" and
“Joe Six Pack” voters, too. So
Dukakis’ campaign manager,
Susan Estrich, was told to stay
away from raising the race
issue. “I am not proud of our
silence,” she said later.
But it was not as if Dukakis
did not attack Bush at all. By
July, Dukakis was already hit
ting back at Bush in his speech
es. And he had always been
tough on Bush. He had said
Bush "made deals with foreign
drug-runners” and was secretly
planning to cut Social Security
benefits. He said Bush had lied
about the Iran-Contra affair.
And the polls were showing
Dukakis well ahead in July. So
why screw around with a win
ning game?
So instead of responding to
Horton directly, Dukakis tried
to exploit public disgust at the
whole nature of the campaign.
Dukakis ran a commercial in
late October called "Counter
punch," in which he is watching
a Bush negative ad on TV.
Dukakis snaps off the set in
disgust and turns to the camera
and says: “I’m fed up with it.
Haven’t seen anything like it in
25 years of public life. George
Bush's negative TV ads: distort
ing my record, full of lies, and
he knows it."
But the ad was judged not
very effective, so Dukakis took
the final step. With the Angel
Medrano ad. Mike Dukakis got
down in the mud with George
Bush.
"George Bush talks a lot
about prison furloughs," the
Dukakis ad said. "But he won't
tell you that the Massachusetts
program was started by a
Republican governor and
stopped by Mike Dukakis. And
Bush won’t talk about the thou
sands of drug kingpins fur
loughed from federal prisons
while he led the war on drugs."
Then the photo of Angel
Medrano, a convicted heroin
dealer, appears on the screen.
"Bush won't talk about this
drug pusher one of his fur
loughed heroin dealers who
raped and murdered Patsy
Pedrin, pregnant mother of
two.”
The Bush campaign felt that
Dukakis had given up any
moral superiority by running
that ad. After all. the Bush cam
paign had never “officially"
used a picture of a black man.
while the Dukakis campaign
had “officially" used the picture
of a Hispanic.
But by the end of the cam
paign. neither side was exactly
smelling like a rose.
r rs
L? 77 NO. You MW \
NCTOWZOWte \ i
Sjf Your homework ’
3 I toinpia. /£] J®
/\ V IM
' X II I i SB
/' 'I
Collins may best serve where he is
Maybe those Republican
troublemakers the ones
talking down Mac Collins’
Senate bid are right after
all. Maybe Collins should for
get about running for the
Senate. Perhaps the congress
man would be better off
and so would Georgia if
Mac stayed right where he is,
a member of the powerful
House Ways and Means
Committee.
To be sure. Collins would
probably make a competent
senator, undoubtedly less
noisy and more influential
than the retiring incumbent
Zell Miller. Collins knows his
way around D C., having been
elected to the House a dozen
years ago. Unlike Miller, he
doesn’t have a temper tantrum
whenever someone forgets to
hold the door for him.
Collins went to
Washington in 1992 with five
other freshman lawmakers
from Georgia: The late Sen.
Paul Coverdell, and Reps.
Jack Kingston. Nathan Deal.
Sanford Bishop and John
Linder.
Back then, election as a
Georgia congressman or sena
tor gave you automatic mem
bership in an elite club of
heavy hitters from the Peach
State. Sen. Sam Nunn was at
the peak of his prowess as one
of the most influential public
figures in the nation. Rep.
Newt Gingrich was the
Republican House whip, on
his way to becoming a leg
endary Speaker. Rep. Buddy
Darden was a close pal of
President Clinton.
Back in Georgia, a more
Bill
Shipp
stable Gov. Zell Miller could
call straight through to the
Oval Office. After all, he had
almost single-handedly res
cued President Clinton from
defeat in the 1992 primaries.
In those days. Miller told
everybody how proud he was
to be a Democrat, especially a
Democrat who could get
things done.
Yep. Georgia had power a
plenty. And it showed. We had
big military bases in every
comer of the state. When time
came to close bases nation
wide. Georgia’s bases not only
survived, some of them actual
ly expanded.
The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in
Atlanta thrived, as did other
federal facilities across the
state. A long list of senators
and congressmen, stretching
back into the 19305, helped
Georgia move steadily upward
and onward.
Now, more than a decade
later. Georgia’s influence in
Congress hovers just above
zero.
Former governor-now-sen
ator Miller is little more than a
lame-duck gadfly. (OK. so it’s
a mixed metaphor, but it fits.)
Nunn and Gingrich are long
gone.
The congressmen closest
to climbing back into the
power circle are Rep.
k ''&h
v -x - x%h
"Ah, the first sure sign of spring -
a lawnmower that won't crank!"
Kingston of Savannah, vice
chairman of the House
Republican Conference and,
therefore, on the House lead
ership ladder, and Rep. Collins
of Hampton, the only
Georgian on the tax-writing
Ways and Means Committee.
If Collins goes for the
Senate - and loses - Georgia’s
power rating in Washington
moves one notch closer to
zero.
If Collins runs for the
Senate and wins he’s
just another freshman senator,
perhaps just another freshman
minority senator at that. His
seat on House Ways and
Means would be lost, and so
would Collins’ clout.
That does not mean an able
successor would not take his
place in the House. State Rep.
Lynn Westmoreland, Sen.
Mike Crotts and Dylan Glenn
have announced for his Bth
District seat. Any one of the
three would do just fine.
However, the new guy from
the Bth would start with no
seniority, no preferred com
mittee assignments and not
much ability to help his dis
trict or state.
Whoever wins Collins' seat
won’t be Collins, nor will he
inherit any of Collins'
strengths or experience
amassed over years in local,
state and federal politics.
(Rep. Kingston almost ran
for the Senate two years ago
but demurred once he decided
he did not want to forfeit his
leadership position in the
House.)
While Collins ponders his
destiny, his front-running
rival, Rep. Johnny Isakson,
doesn’t have to worry about
seniority. Elected in 1999, he
has little to lose.
Isakson also doesn’t have
to fret much about money
(he’s collected $4.5 million)
or name recognition (his poll
ster says 93 percent of
Georgians know him and 67
percent like him).
Collins has barely raised
$1 million in campaign funds;
his statewide name ID is a
measly 62 percent, with a low
favorable rating to boot. A
businessman, Herman Cain, is
threatening to pass Collins in
the polls. Collins will need
millions to catch up, and time
is running out. Qualifications
are barely three weeks away
on April 26, and the decisive
primary is July 20.
Given that Democrats have
been unable to find a finan
cially worthy Senate candi
date. victory in the GOP pri
mary will be tantamount to
election.
If Collins changes his mind
and runs for a seventh term in
the House, he is virtually
guaranteed victory. He moves
up the seniority ladder in a
Republican-controlled House
and takes Georgia another step
closer to re-entering the cir
cles of power. If Collins per
sists in going for the Senate,
he will succeed only in delet
ing one more influential voice
from the Georgia delegation,
no matter how the voting turns
out.
Bill Shipp’s column
appears each Wednesday and
Sunday. His e-mail address
bsh ipp @ be 11 south, net.