WILLIE HORTON

The name "Willie Horton" has become synonymous with negative campaigning because critics said it played to racial fears. An independent expediture for the first George H.W. Bush campaign featured a picture of Willie Horton, who is African American and a convicted felon. Horton was enrolled in a furlough program championed by Bush's opponent, Michael Dukakis. The furlough program allowed Horton the opportunity to commit a rape and armed robbery against a woman. The ad was sponsored by the group Americans for Bush, although some observers saw the fingerprints of legendary strategist Lee Atwater.
According to Wikipedia:
"Beginning on September 21, 1988, the Americans for Bush arm of the National Security Political Action Committee, began running a campaign ad entitled "Weekend Passes," using the Horton case to attack Dukakis. The ad was produced by media consultant Larry McCarthy, who had previously worked for Roger Ailes. After clearing the ad with television stations, McCarthy went back and added a menacing mug shot of Horton, who is African-American. He called the image "every suburban mother's greatest fear." The ad was run as an independent expenditure, separate from the Bush campaign, which claimed, as is legally required, not to have had any role in its production.
On October 5, a day after the "Weekend Passes" ad was taken off the airwaves, and also the date of the infamous Bentsen-Quayle debate, the Bush campaign ran its own ad, "Revolving Door," which also attacked Dukakis over the weekend furlough program. While the advertisement did not mention Horton or feature his photograph, it depicted a variety of intimidating-looking men walking in and out of prison through a revolving door.
The commercial was filmed at an actual state prison in Draper, Utah, but the persons depicted - thirty in all, including three African-Americans and two Hispanics - were all paid actors. Attempting to counter-attack, Dukakis's campaign ran an ad about a murderer named Angel Medrano who raped and killed a pregnant mother of two after escaping from a federal correctional halfway house. Unlike Horton, Medrano (who according to Arizona Department of Corrections records, has been found guilty of 16 major and eight minor violations of prison rules and conduct between 1982 and 1999 including assault with a weapon) was not already serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Dukakis's ad ignored this fact and displayed Medrano's name and showed his photograph. According to Elizabeth Drew of "The New Yorker," several Hispanic congressmen in the Southwest asked Dukakis to delete Medrano's name, which was done.The controversy escalated when Vice Presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen and former Democratic candidate and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson called the ad racist. In 1991, terminally ill with cancer, Atwater apologized to Dukakis for saying that he would "make Willie Horton his running mate...because it makes me sound racist, which I am not."In 1990, the Ohio Democratic Party and a group called "Black Elected Democrats of Ohio" filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission alleging that NSPAC had coordinated or cooperated with the Bush campaign in airing the ad, which would make it an illegal in-kind campaign contribution. Investigation by the FEC, including deposition of officials from both organizations, revealed indirect connections between McCarthy and the Bush campaign (such as his having previously worked for Ailes), but found no direct evidence of wrongdoing, and the investigation reached an impasse and was eventually closed with no finding of any violation of campaign finance laws.