Reply With QuoteFurther evidence that scare tactics ARE used by both sides.
What a fvcking asshole.
apnews.myway.com/article/...4CP00.html
I guess when you're desperate, you're desperate.
Further evidence that scare tactics ARE used by both sides.
Yeah, I saw that. It'll backfire.
The black vote isn't chained to the Demoncratic Plantation anymore.
I saw something like that last night. WTF?
It's called desperation.
Whatever works.
Sincerely,
Willie Horton
If I'm not mistaken, Willie Horton was the ploy of one Demoncrat on another -- No?
That kinda backfired too, huh?
I doubt the race issue was pressed by Gore.
Oddly enough, the "weekend pass" law was actually signed in Mass. law by a Republican governor.
Actually it was Gore, during the primary debates, that blasted Dukakis on his furlough program -- specifically mentioning that two furloughed prisoners had committed serious crimes while out on "vacation."
So, yes, it was Gore that opened the gate on Willie Horton.
Didn't mention names or race.
Certainly didn't air grainy mugshots.
Not a race card.
And it wasn't his furlough program, if anyone's it was Reepublican Governor Sargent's.
So?
Race card.
I'll give you another chance to figure it out.
Can anyone, but Willie Horton, help that he's a black criminal? The ad I saw had to do with a dangerous criminal, released due to a Dukakis furlough program, who went out and committed a heinous crime.
Because he was black should have dictated how it was constructed? Why?
Again, the program was signed in by a Republican, and the race and name and image were not used until the TV ads.
Even you could connect the dots.
I think that make you the racist to think the criminal's race had anything to do with it.
Gore raised the issue to begin with.
All the anti-Duk crowd did was run an ad with Horton's picture, quite relevant because, again, Gore ing named Horton.
Next.
Gore didn't name him.
Who cares...he's a ing criminal?
Gore raised the furlough issue. The GOP made it real instead of some debating point by putting the ad on the air. If Horton had happened to be white, it would have been the same ad with a white guy's picture.
It's not like the GOP suggested a white criminal was black. Did they photoshop the mug shot to make him black?
Doesn't make much of a difference.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton
Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was the governor of Massachusetts at the time, and while he did not start the furlough program, he had supported it as a method of rehabilitation. The State inmate furlough program was actually signed into law by Governor Francis W. Sargent in 1972. However, in 1976, Governor Dukakis vetoed a bill that would ban furloughs for first-degree murderers. The program remained in effect through the intervening term of governor Edward J. King and was abolished during Dukakis's final term of office on April 28, 1988.
Senator Al Gore raised the issue of the furlough program during the 1988 Democratic presidential primary. At a debate in New York, Gore alluded to Horton's case although not naming him. After Dukakis won the Democratic Party nomination, Republican candidate George H.W. Bush's campaign released an ad criticizing the furlough program to portray Dukakis as soft and ineffective on crime: this ad also did not mention Horton or his offense specifically.
Subsequently a political action committee (PAC) named "National Security", independently of the Bush campaign, produced a television commercial led "Weekend Passes" which was much more explosive. The ad not only told the Horton story but also featured his mug shot, which critics of Bush saw as a tactic to divide white and black voters (Horton is a black man). National Security member Larry McCarthy called the image "every suburban mother's greatest fear."
On April 18, 1996, Horton was transferred to the Maryland House of Correction Annex, a maximum security prison in Jessup, Maryland, where he remains today.
Nice to admit you're wrong.
No one played the race card...they played the criminal card.
You're splitting hairs. Gore brought up Horton's case to begin with. The Bush campaign didn't "name" him (as if that even matters).
If it doesn't matter, then don't mention it.
Who's splitting now?
You are. Gore raised the issue. Running an ad about the case is not racist.
There is some evidence that the Florida government is trying to affect to the black vote:
www.iht.com/articles/534173.htm
Bob Herbert: Suppressing the black vote in Florida
NYT
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
The big story out of Florida over the weekend was the tragic devastation caused by Hurricane Charley. But there's another story from Florida that deserves our attention.
State police officers have been going into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogating them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.
The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Governor Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March.
Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end and acknowledged that it might continue right through the presidential election.
"We did a preliminary inquiry into those allegations and then we concluded that there was enough evidence to follow through with a full criminal investigation," said Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement.
The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.
I asked Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.
"I can't talk about that," he said.
I asked if all the people interrogated were black.
"Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes," he said.
He also said, "Most of them were elderly."
When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."
Back in the bad old days, some decades ago, when Southern whites used every imaginable form of chicanery to prevent blacks from voting, blacks often fought back by creating voters' leagues, which were organizations that helped to register, educate and encourage black voters. It became a tradition that continues in many places, including Florida, today.
Not surprisingly, many of the elderly black voters who found themselves face to face with state police officers in Orlando are members of the Orlando League of Voters, which has been very successful in mobilizing the city's black vote.
The president of the Orlando League of Voters is Ezzie Thomas, 73. With his demonstrated ability to deliver the black vote in Orlando, Thomas is a tempting target for supporters of George W. Bush in a state in which the black vote may well spell the difference between victory and defeat.
The vile smell of voter suppression is all over this so-called investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Joseph Egan, an Orlando lawyer who represents Thomas, said: "The Voters League has workers who go into the community to do voter registration, drive people to the polls and help with absentee ballots. They are elderly women mostly. They get paid like $100 for four or five months work, just to offset things like the cost of their gas. They see this political activity as an important contribution to their community. Some of the people in the community had never cast a ballot until the league came to their door and encouraged them to vote."
Now, said Egan, the fear generated by state police officers going into people's homes as part of an ongoing criminal investigation related to voting is threatening to undo much of the good work of the league. He said, "One woman asked me, 'Am I going to go to jail now because I voted by absentee ballot?'"
According to Egan, "People who have voted by absentee ballot for years are refusing to allow campaign workers to come to their homes. And volunteers who have participated for years in assisting people, particularly the elderly or handicapped, are scared and don't want to risk a criminal investigation."
Florida is a state that's very much in play in the presidential election, with some polls showing John Kerry in the lead. A heavy-handed state police investigation that throws a blanket of fear over thousands of black voters can only help Bush.
The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State.
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