Lee Atwater

Lee Atwater (born February 27, 1951, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.—died March 29, 1991, Washington, D.C.) was an American political strategist and self-described “ardent practitioner” of negative campaign tactics who directed George H.W. Bush’s successful 1988 presidential campaign and later served as chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC).

Lee Atwater’s father, Harvey Dillard Atwater, was an insurance adjuster, and his mother, Alma Atwater (née Page), was a schoolteacher. When Lee was 10 years old, his family moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where he attended A.C. Flora High School. Although he was a poor student, his mother was able to arrange his admission to Newberry College, a Lutheran school near Columbia, from which he graduated in 1973. In 1977 he earned a master’s degree in communications from the University of South Carolina. While at Newberry, Atwater served an internship (also arranged by his mother) in the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. He also became chair of the South Carolina chapter of the College Republicans, a national organization of conservative college students. After serving as director of the organization’s national office in 1973–74, Atwater established a political consulting firm in Columbia, from which he managed the campaigns of numerous Republican candidates for local offices. As head of Thurmond’s reelection campaign in 1978, Atwater created advertisements portraying Thurmond’s Democratic opponent as disloyal to South Carolina and more comfortable in the liberal state of New York. Thurmond won the election in a landslide.

In 1980 Atwater helped Ronald Reagan win the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina by falsely characterizing his rival, George H.W. Bush, as a strong supporter of gun control. Atwater then served as the Southern coordinator of the Reagan-Bush presidential campaign. He also aided the victory of the Republican candidate for South Carolina’s 2nd congressional district by emphasizing that the Democratic candidate had once undergone electroshock therapy, which Atwater characterized as being “hooked up to jumper cables.” Following Reagan’s election as president in 1980, Atwater was named deputy political director in the Reagan White House, and in 1984 he became deputy manager of Reagan’s reelection campaign.

As Bush’s campaign director during the 1988 presidential race, Atwater was responsible for Bush’s generally negative campaign, which aggressively portrayed the Democratic candidate, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, as unpatriotic and soft on crime. Atwater’s tactics included a notorious attack ad that effectively blamed Dukakis for the rape of a white woman by a Black convicted murderer, Willie Horton, who had escaped police custody while on a weekend furlough. (Dukakis had earlier vetoed legislation that would have denied furloughs to persons convicted of first-degree murder.) Although many people criticized Atwater and Bush for appealing to anti-Black racism, the relentlessness of their negative campaign helped to propel Bush to a landslide victory, in which he won 40 states.

In March 1990 Atwater collapsed while giving a speech at a political fundraising event. He was taken to a hospital and soon diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer. In February 1991, long after it was clear that Atwater would not recover from his illness, Life magazine published an article cowritten by Atwater in which he reviewed his career and apologized for the “naked cruelty” and apparent racism of statements he had made about Dukakis and Willie Horton during the 1988 campaign.

In addition to his career as a political strategist, Atwater was an accomplished rhythm and blues guitarist, and in 1991 he and the great blues singer B.B. King shared a Grammy Award nomination for best contemporary blues recording.