Bush's Most Valuable Player

Willie Horton. Black. Murderer. Rapist. Most valuable player in George Bush's no-holds-barred bid for the White House.

Of all the tactics used by Bush's strategists to brand Michael Dukakis a gooey liberal out of touch with mainstream values, none worked better than the relentless pounding of Horton's horrible tale. By the end of the campaign, scarcely a voter had not been exposed to the lurid details of the rapacious spree Horton committed while on weekend furlough from the Massachusetts prison to which he had been sentenced to life without parole for a brutal 1974 homicide.

Like most attack ploys, there was...

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