Sunday, November 29, 2009

Willie Horton Redux?

A convicted felon granted clemency nine years ago by former Arkansas Governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, is wanted for questioning in the shooting deaths of four police officers in Washington state.

Maurice Clemmons, the man wanted for questioning, has been convicted of five felonies in Arkansas and has been charged with eight felonies in Washington state.

I just read a story that Huckabee was reconsidering his presidential run in 2012. Maybe this is a good thing, considering what they did to Dukakis on 1988 with a similar incident — assuming that Clemmons is convicted of this.



From the Willie Horton page on Wikipedia:

The first person to mention the Massachusetts furlough program in the 1988 presidential campaign was Al Gore. During a debate at the Felt Forum sponsored by the New York Daily News, Gore took issue with the furlough program. However, he did not specifically mention the Horton incident or even mention Horton's name, instead asking a general question about the Massachusetts furlough program.[6]

Republicans picked up the Horton issue after Dukakis clinched the nomination. In June 1988, Republican candidate George H.W. Bush seized on the Horton case, bringing it up repeatedly in campaign speeches.[6] Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, predicted that "by the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name."[6][7] Media consultant Roger Ailes remarked "the only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it."
I have a feeling these murders in Washington are going to go from tragic to ugly.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where did you get this info? My paper this morning (on 1/4 of pg 10 after 2 pages of tiger) said there were no suspects.

Gavin said...

It was top of the home page on Huffington Post last night. It's still there, but down a little further.

The story about Huckabee reconsidering 2012 was also on the home page is now at the bottom of the Politics page.

They thought they had the suspect cornered but he wasn't in the house where they thought.