1988 Election Without Lee Atwater

Amadeus

Suppose that Vice-President George H.W. Bush never hired Lee Atwater as his campaign manager for the 1988 election. What would've been the result of the primary season and ultimately the general election? Would Bush have been able to win without Atwater?
 

Amadeus

IMO Bush loses the Republican nomination to Bob Dole, who goes on to narrowly defeat Dukakis in the general. Without Atwater Bush might very well have lost the New Hampshire primary, and as his own team recognized if they lost both Iowa and NH they were done. However, Dole would stand a good chance of beating Dukakis once he gets Reagan's endorsement, the popularity boost from the GOP convention, and Dukakis' own campaign implodes thanks to the tank ad, the death penalty response, and the Duke's inability to present any real message beyond "competence."
 

Amadeus

As far as I'm concerned, Dole would've done most of everything that Bush did: raise taxes in 1990, push Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991. However the biggest differences could come in foreign policy. Dole would be more inclined to give the kind of "victory speech" after the fall of the Berlin Wall that many neo-cons wanted Bush to give. Further, after Hussein's forces are kicked out of Kuwait does Dole go all the way to Baghdad? If so, then the mess of 2003 probably happens twelve years early...

On the other hand, believe it or not I think Dukakis would've done most of what Bush did as well: he'd raise taxes for sure, and once diplomacy fails in the Middle-East the Duke would have no choice but to go to war over Kuwait. The 1992 election will depend on how Dukakis handles the economy...
 

darklordoftech

Maybe our politics would be less toxic today. Maybe mass incarceration and police brutality wouldn't be as big issues. Maybe the Democrats wouldn't have become as centrist as they did OTL.
 

Amadeus

darklordoftech said:
Maybe our politics would be less toxic today. Maybe mass incarceration and police brutality wouldn't be as big issues. Maybe the Democrats wouldn't have become as centrist as they did OTL.
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Democrats would probably be a lot less concerned about being soft on crime, and liberalism would be less tainted (although still unpopular in much of the country). The 1992 race might look different; Clinton and his DLC comrades would have less star power for example.
 

Kerney

There was a good article a few months ago (on phone where linking is challenging) about how Lee Atwater set up/entrapped Gary Hart.

Hart, assuming he's alert to the danger somehow, doesn't screw up and becomes the Democratic nominee. Hart beats the Republican nominee (Bush or Dole) and serves two terms as kind of a more empathic Al Gore.
 

Amadeus

Kerney said:
There was a good article a few months ago (on phone where linking is challenging) about how Lee Atwater set up/entrapped Gary Hart.

Hart, assuming he's alert to the danger somehow, doesn't screw up and becomes the Democratic nominee. Hart beats the Republican nominee (Bush or Dole) and serves two terms as kind of a more empathic Al Gore.
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I'll quote a post of mine from another thread:

Amadeus said:
That was claimed recently in an article in The Atlantic, which says that before he died Atwater claimed to have done the following, "contriving an invitation from Broadhurst for Hart to come on a boat ride, when Hart intended to be working on a speech. Ensuring that young women would be invited aboard. Arranging for the Broadhurst boat Hart thought he would be boarding, with some unmemorable name, to be unavailable—so that the group would have to switch to another boat, Monkey Business. Persuading Broadhurst to 'forget' to check in with customs clearance at Bimini before closing time, so that the boat “unexpectedly” had to stay overnight there. And, according to Hart, organizing an opportunistic photo-grab."

This seems like a desperate attempt by a dying man to satiate his notoriously outsized ego. How exactly could Atwater have not only done all that but completely get away with it for 31 years? And unlike with Dukakis and other candidates Atwater actually did destroy, Atwater never apologized to Hart. Which seems strange since it was Hart who suffered the most humiliation. IMO, Hart did himself in and Atwater wasn't involved, though I'm sure he wished that he had been.

Here is the article I referenced: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/was-gary-hart-set-up/570802/
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Amadeus

darklordoftech said:
I also wonder if it was Atwater who told Bush to say, "read my lips".
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Actually it was his speechwriters, not Atwater. In fact it was Bush's political advisers who pushed back on putting in "read my lips," but ultimately they kept it in as a bone to throw to the conservatives.
 

darklordoftech

I get the impression that Atwater's job was to make Bush seem more "rural", "in touch with real Americans", etc. than he actually was.
 
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