How conservatives win

Lee Atwater.

This month saw the 30th anniversary of an event that passed in Australia entirely without mention, for it was on October 5, 1988, that the presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush pulled a TV ad featuring a formerly obscure thug by the name of Willie Horton. A convicted killer, Horton had been granted a weekend furlough from his Massachusetts prison only to embark on a rape-and-robbery spree that concluded with his capture in Maryland. As Bush’s opponent, Michael Dukakis, was the state governor and responsible for overseeing the penal system, Republican campaign operative Lee Atwater laid the blame for Horton’s crimes at the feet of his boss’ opponent.

The ads prompted gales of denunciation from a chorus of Democrat voices. Horton was a black man, whined Jesse Jackson, so mention of his crimes was not, as Atwater insisted, a commentary on a dangerous policy poorly overseen but a dog whistle to inflame the racist sentiments of white Americans. There was plenty more of the same from Dukakis allies, not least in America’s opinion pages and from TV editorialists. It just wasn’t fair, the Democrats’ media mouthpieces harped, to sheet home responsibility for Horton’s rampages to the man who, they generally agreed, would make a fine president.

So after four months and much hoo-ha the Willie Horton ads were dropped. If Bush’s critics wished to see that as a shame-faced retreat, Atwater must have thought, so be it. In the meantime, polls and focus groups provided the proof it had not only worked but worked spectacularly. Where the commentariat saw only racism, average voters dispensed with the nuanced perspectives beloved of the punditocracy and identified in Dukakis a dangerous incompetence that had unleashed a public peril for no good reason whatsoever.

Bush went on to win the presidential race in a landslide. Sometimes, as Australia’s conservative politicians appear reluctant to appreciate, it pays to be nasty, blunt and to the point.

Lord knows, down here in Victoria, we could use an Atwater or two in the office of aspiring Liberal premier Matthew Guy, who has been blessed with what military sorts might describe as a ‘target rich environment’ but whose best shots consistently miss.

Consider the vulnerabilities of the odious Daniel Andrews, whose first act as premier was to flush $1.2 billion down the drain in order to cancel the former government’s plan to build a much-needed tunnel beneath traffic-choked Fitzroy and Carlton.

Consider the on-going “red shirt scandal”, which saw Labor politicians fleece the public purse to pay for their campaign workers.

Consider the chaos at Fines Victoria, whose fouled computers are stripping blameless citizens of their right to drive for penalties already paid or never issued in the first place.

Consider Victoria Police and its practice of charging promoters five-figure sums for protection against attacks by feral leftists, the inability of senior officers to determine if there is a “Sudanese gang problem”, plus what now seems the standard practice of not mentioning push-in robberies unless and until their victims have related their terror on radio station 3AW.

Consider the looming blackouts when the Labor government’s move to replicate South Australia’s misadventures with renewables comes home to roost.

Consider the Andrews’ governments assault on the Country Fire Authority’s heroic and unpaid volunteers, a move intended to pleasure unionised fire fighters and their bosses.

The list of sins against probity, good government and, indeed, basic common sense is so long it would drop off the bottom of Quadrant Online’s home page were all this government’s shenanigans and scandals to be listed. Yet according to the latest polls, Labor is ahead and likely to remain in government.

Oh, for a Lee Atwater and an opposition leader who, like Bush, is prepared to incur the wrath of his opponent’s media allies by going for the throat.

You never know, but such a person might actually carry the day, become premier and start to fix things. There are a lot of things to fix, that’s for sure.

For more on the sorry state of governance and ethics in Victoria follow this link or the one below.

— roger franklin

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