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Who was Lee Atwater?
By windstone | June 28, 2008
Sage referenced the legendary GOP political operative the other day and some of you dont know the man? Aw, come on now folks. Well, let me give you a primer. Harvey Leroy “Lee” Atwater was born in Atlanta,Georgia, on February 27,1951.
He may have been born in the state know for its peaches, but Lee Atwater was through and through a South Carolina man. He learned from two of the state’s greatest politicians, Governor Carroll Campbell and Senator Strom Thurmond. The two practically were the be-all and end-all in South Carolina politics,especially on the Republican side.
Atwater became a tough operator of campaigns, using weaknesses of candidates against them. He would use character or issue matters, but he was usually tough, for the most part not the nasty operator critics said he was. He ran a few congressional campaigns and was political coordinator for the Reagan campaign in 1980.
The guitarist and theatre man went to Washington on the recommendation of Thurmond,working as a member of the Reagan administration with White House political director Ed Rollins. Atwater’s fame came as the man behind the 1988 campaign of then-Vice President George H.W. Bush to succeed President Reagan.
His great work there led President Bush to name him chairman of the Republican National Committee. But a tragic brain tumor discovered in 1990 cut short his life. He died March 29,1991.
Atwater comes up because of a new documetary about him called Boogie Man. The reaction to the film hasn’t been positive from our side of the aisle, but people do seem agree on one thing- you better know who understand the impact Lee Atwater had on American politics.
Postscript: Sorry for the errors! Thanks!
Topics: Pres. Bush, political philosophy, Bill Clinton, CRs in the news |
June 29th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
The name of the movie is Boogie Man and the correct link is http://www.boogiemanfilm.com/
In fact, all the links in this story are messed up with two http parts.
The movie Boogie Nights stars Mark Wahlberg as a porn star named Dirk Diggler that is famous for being an all-American Johnny Three Legs.