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Where have you gone Lee Atwater?
RaceBannon
Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 107,737 
in Tug Tavern
Not Lee Greenwood who wrote the racist Thank God I'm an American song that Reagan used, but Lee Atwater who got Regan elected twice and Bush once. Atwater died in 1991 and so did the Bush presidency. Since then the GOP has elected another Bush and one term of Trump while the left has infiltrated every part of American life.
Let's start with how the left narrative remembers Lee because that seems to be what we? go by here.
https://newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-secret-papers-of-lee-atwater-who-invented-the-scurrilous-tactics-that-trump-normalized
The Secret Papers of Lee Atwater, Who Invented the Scurrilous Tactics That Trump Normalized
An infamous Republican political operative’s unpublished memoir shows how the Party came to embrace lies, racial fearmongering, and winning at any cost.
Some of the memorabilia was surprising. Despite Atwater’s well-deserved reputation for running racist campaigns, there were friendly private notes and photos of him with Al Sharpton and James Brown, whose onstage acrobatics Atwater was famous for trying to mimic in his own blues-guitar performances. There were also personal notes from underground-film stars of the John Waters era. According to his daughter, Atwater was a huge underground-film aficionado. While the Republican Party he chaired trumpeted family values and the Christian right, on the side he helped a friend open a video store in Virginia specializing in pornography, blaxploitation, and his own favorite genre, horror movies. Atwater experienced horror in his own life
In many ways, his memoir suggests that Atwater’s tactics were a bridge between the old Republican Party of the Nixon era, when dirty tricks were considered a scandal, and the new Republican Party of Donald Trump, in which lies, racial fearmongering, and winning at any cost have become normalized. Chapter 5 of Atwater’s memoir in particular serves as a Trumpian precursor. In it, Atwater, who worked in the Office of Political Affairs in the Reagan White House, and managed George H. W. Bush’s 1988 Presidential campaign before becoming the Republican Party’s chairman at the age of thirty-seven, admits outright that he only cared about winning, not governing. “I’ve always thought running for office is a bunch of bullshit. Being in a office is even more bullshit. It really is bullshit,” he wrote. “I’m proud of the fact that I understand how much BS it is.”
https://pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/atwater/etc/synopsis.html
Eskew says Atwater knew how to control media narratives. "Now it's kind of rote in politics, but Lee was saying early: Perception is reality. He was ahead of his time."
"Atwater had a genius for the sticky issue -- simple enough, scary enough that the media could latch onto it," Conason says. "[George] W. learned that the only thing that really matters is who wins."
While some argue that Atwater's political successes resulted solely from dirty tricks and a win-at-any-cost mentality, former colleagues say that view is an oversimplification. They explain in Boogie Man how Atwater's keen attention to the concerns of middle-class Americans helped him identify issues to which his Democratic opponents were often tone deaf.
"It's so much easier to blame dirty tricks than it is to acknowledge hard work," says Eskew. "Did he give his opponents ammunition to criticize him for negative tactics? Yes. Does that obscure the fact that he outfoxed them at nearly every turn? Not to those of us watching closely."
Former colleague and conservative commentator Mary Matalin agrees. "They had to kill the messenger because they couldn't kill the message," she says of Atwater's critics. "They had to turn him into the boogie man -- Satan incarnate."
https://thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/
980 and 1984 elections
Atwater talking with Lyn Nofziger in Nofziger's office in the White House on January 21, 1982
Atwater's aggressive tactics were first demonstrated during the 1980 Congressional campaigns. He was a campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence in his campaign for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed. Atwater's tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by so-called independent pollsters to inform white suburbanites that Turnipseed was a member of the NAACP.[8] He also sent out last-minute letters from Senator Thurmond telling voters that Turnipseed would disarm the United States, and turn it over to liberals and Communists.[9] At a press briefing, Atwater planted a fake reporter who rose and said, "We understand that Turnipseed has had psychiatric treatment". Atwater later told reporters off the record that Turnipseed "got hooked up to jumper cables", referring to electroconvulsive therapy that Turnipseed underwent as a teenager.[10] Spence went on to win the race.
President Ronald Reagan during a trip via Air Force One to Alabama with Lee Atwater and Stu Spencer on October 15, 1984
After the 1980 election, Atwater went to Washington and became an aide in the Ronald Reagan administration, working under political director Ed Rollins. In 1984, Rollins managed Reagan's re-election campaign, and Atwater became the campaign's deputy director and political director. Rollins mentions Atwater's work several times in his 1996 book Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms.[11] He states that Atwater ran a dirty tricks operation against Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, including publicizing the fact that Ferraro's parents had been indicted on numbers running in the 1940s. Rollins also described Atwater as "ruthless", "Ollie North in civilian clothes", and someone who "just had to drive in one more stake".[12]
Atwater became a senior partner at the political consulting firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly the day after the 1984 presidential election.[13]
During his years in Washington, Atwater became aligned with Vice President George H. W. Bush, who chose Atwater to manage his 1988 presidential campaign.[14]
"Southern strategy"
See also: Southern strategy
As a member of the Reagan administration in 1981, Atwater gave an anonymous interview to political scientist Alexander P. Lamis. Part of the interview was printed in Lamis' book The Two-Party South, then reprinted in Southern Politics in the 1990s with Atwater's name revealed. Bob Herbert reported on the interview in the October 6, 2005, issue of The New York Times. On November 13, 2012, The Nation magazine released a 42-minute audio recording of the interview.[15] James Carter IV, grandson of former president Jimmy Carter, had asked and been granted access to these tapes by Lamis' widow. Atwater talked about the Republican Southern strategy:
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now you don't have to do that. All that you need to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues that he's campaigned on since 1964, and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger". By 1968, you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger". So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back-burner.[16]
Atwater also argued that Reagan did not need to make racial appeals, suggesting that Reagan's issues transcended the racial prism of the "Southern Strategy":
Atwater: But Reagan did not have to do a southern strategy for two reasons. Number one, race was not a dominant issue. And number two, the mainstream issues in this campaign had been, quote, southern issues since way back in the sixties. So Reagan goes out and campaigns on the issues of economics and of national defense. The whole campaign was devoid of any kind of racism, any kind of reference. And I'll tell you another thing you all need to think about, that even surprised me, is the lack of interest, really, the lack of knowledge right now in the South among white voters about the Voting Rights Act.
Imagine win at all costs. That's the left today. The GOP is the Pac 12
Anyway anyone who was there on either side remembers that the saintly Reagan was the first to get enhanced savaging from the left. Not just racist but fascist and Hitler too. Many of you would have gone Ford or Bush in 1980 in order to lose the right way
TLDR Race is ranting
Let's start with how the left narrative remembers Lee because that seems to be what we? go by here.
https://newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-secret-papers-of-lee-atwater-who-invented-the-scurrilous-tactics-that-trump-normalized
The Secret Papers of Lee Atwater, Who Invented the Scurrilous Tactics That Trump Normalized
An infamous Republican political operative’s unpublished memoir shows how the Party came to embrace lies, racial fearmongering, and winning at any cost.
Some of the memorabilia was surprising. Despite Atwater’s well-deserved reputation for running racist campaigns, there were friendly private notes and photos of him with Al Sharpton and James Brown, whose onstage acrobatics Atwater was famous for trying to mimic in his own blues-guitar performances. There were also personal notes from underground-film stars of the John Waters era. According to his daughter, Atwater was a huge underground-film aficionado. While the Republican Party he chaired trumpeted family values and the Christian right, on the side he helped a friend open a video store in Virginia specializing in pornography, blaxploitation, and his own favorite genre, horror movies. Atwater experienced horror in his own life
In many ways, his memoir suggests that Atwater’s tactics were a bridge between the old Republican Party of the Nixon era, when dirty tricks were considered a scandal, and the new Republican Party of Donald Trump, in which lies, racial fearmongering, and winning at any cost have become normalized. Chapter 5 of Atwater’s memoir in particular serves as a Trumpian precursor. In it, Atwater, who worked in the Office of Political Affairs in the Reagan White House, and managed George H. W. Bush’s 1988 Presidential campaign before becoming the Republican Party’s chairman at the age of thirty-seven, admits outright that he only cared about winning, not governing. “I’ve always thought running for office is a bunch of bullshit. Being in a office is even more bullshit. It really is bullshit,” he wrote. “I’m proud of the fact that I understand how much BS it is.”
https://pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/atwater/etc/synopsis.html
Eskew says Atwater knew how to control media narratives. "Now it's kind of rote in politics, but Lee was saying early: Perception is reality. He was ahead of his time."
"Atwater had a genius for the sticky issue -- simple enough, scary enough that the media could latch onto it," Conason says. "[George] W. learned that the only thing that really matters is who wins."
While some argue that Atwater's political successes resulted solely from dirty tricks and a win-at-any-cost mentality, former colleagues say that view is an oversimplification. They explain in Boogie Man how Atwater's keen attention to the concerns of middle-class Americans helped him identify issues to which his Democratic opponents were often tone deaf.
"It's so much easier to blame dirty tricks than it is to acknowledge hard work," says Eskew. "Did he give his opponents ammunition to criticize him for negative tactics? Yes. Does that obscure the fact that he outfoxed them at nearly every turn? Not to those of us watching closely."
Former colleague and conservative commentator Mary Matalin agrees. "They had to kill the messenger because they couldn't kill the message," she says of Atwater's critics. "They had to turn him into the boogie man -- Satan incarnate."
https://thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/
980 and 1984 elections
Atwater talking with Lyn Nofziger in Nofziger's office in the White House on January 21, 1982
Atwater's aggressive tactics were first demonstrated during the 1980 Congressional campaigns. He was a campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence in his campaign for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed. Atwater's tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by so-called independent pollsters to inform white suburbanites that Turnipseed was a member of the NAACP.[8] He also sent out last-minute letters from Senator Thurmond telling voters that Turnipseed would disarm the United States, and turn it over to liberals and Communists.[9] At a press briefing, Atwater planted a fake reporter who rose and said, "We understand that Turnipseed has had psychiatric treatment". Atwater later told reporters off the record that Turnipseed "got hooked up to jumper cables", referring to electroconvulsive therapy that Turnipseed underwent as a teenager.[10] Spence went on to win the race.
President Ronald Reagan during a trip via Air Force One to Alabama with Lee Atwater and Stu Spencer on October 15, 1984
After the 1980 election, Atwater went to Washington and became an aide in the Ronald Reagan administration, working under political director Ed Rollins. In 1984, Rollins managed Reagan's re-election campaign, and Atwater became the campaign's deputy director and political director. Rollins mentions Atwater's work several times in his 1996 book Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms.[11] He states that Atwater ran a dirty tricks operation against Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, including publicizing the fact that Ferraro's parents had been indicted on numbers running in the 1940s. Rollins also described Atwater as "ruthless", "Ollie North in civilian clothes", and someone who "just had to drive in one more stake".[12]
Atwater became a senior partner at the political consulting firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly the day after the 1984 presidential election.[13]
During his years in Washington, Atwater became aligned with Vice President George H. W. Bush, who chose Atwater to manage his 1988 presidential campaign.[14]
"Southern strategy"
See also: Southern strategy
As a member of the Reagan administration in 1981, Atwater gave an anonymous interview to political scientist Alexander P. Lamis. Part of the interview was printed in Lamis' book The Two-Party South, then reprinted in Southern Politics in the 1990s with Atwater's name revealed. Bob Herbert reported on the interview in the October 6, 2005, issue of The New York Times. On November 13, 2012, The Nation magazine released a 42-minute audio recording of the interview.[15] James Carter IV, grandson of former president Jimmy Carter, had asked and been granted access to these tapes by Lamis' widow. Atwater talked about the Republican Southern strategy:
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now you don't have to do that. All that you need to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues that he's campaigned on since 1964, and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger". By 1968, you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger". So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back-burner.[16]
Atwater also argued that Reagan did not need to make racial appeals, suggesting that Reagan's issues transcended the racial prism of the "Southern Strategy":
Atwater: But Reagan did not have to do a southern strategy for two reasons. Number one, race was not a dominant issue. And number two, the mainstream issues in this campaign had been, quote, southern issues since way back in the sixties. So Reagan goes out and campaigns on the issues of economics and of national defense. The whole campaign was devoid of any kind of racism, any kind of reference. And I'll tell you another thing you all need to think about, that even surprised me, is the lack of interest, really, the lack of knowledge right now in the South among white voters about the Voting Rights Act.
Imagine win at all costs. That's the left today. The GOP is the Pac 12
Anyway anyone who was there on either side remembers that the saintly Reagan was the first to get enhanced savaging from the left. Not just racist but fascist and Hitler too. Many of you would have gone Ford or Bush in 1980 in order to lose the right way
TLDR Race is ranting
Comments
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THE JOURNOLIST IS HOPPING: Liberals Freak out Over Being Called ‘Groomers.’
Lee Atwater understood sticky and middle class issues that the left is tone deaf on
Sounds familiar
Lee Atwater's greatest act of "racism" was when he showed in a TV Ad an accurate picture of the person who had been given a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison and then used his time out of jail to rob and rape someone. It's "racist" to show pictures of criminals unless they're white or white Hispanic criminals.
Factually this Ad was 100% accurate.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/this-1988-ad-inspired-the-gops-latest-attack-on-tim-kaine/2016/10/03/c74931f8-8980-11e6-8cdc-4fbb1973b506_video.html
And was a legit issue that hit big hence the need to call it racist