The number one reason I fear for the future of America is my belief that the Left is fighting harder to destroy our freedoms than the Right is to preserve them.  With a few individual exceptions, the Republican Party is a milquetoast defender of freedom, as evidenced in part by its pathetic showing in the 2022 off-year elections.

This raises the question, where is a Lee Atwater when we really need him?

Political strategist Atwater, who died in 1991 at age 40 from brain cancer, was the epitome of brass knuckles political brawling. His guiding philosophy could best be summed up by the words of former Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis: “Just win, baby.” And in his obsession with winning, Atwater often resorted to tactics that would have many of today’s faint-hearted Republicans needing smelling salts.

Atwater cut his teeth politically in the South Carolina GOP. In a 1980 Congressional race where he advised incumbent Floyd Spence, he looked for a clever way to reveal that Spence’s opponent, Tom Turnipseed, had been a psychiatric patient.

The plan he came up with was to plant a fake reporter at a press conference where the plant said, “We understand that Turnipseed has undergone psychiatric treatment.” In a remark that has become famous or infamous in political circles, Atwater told reporters, “Turnipseed got hooked up to jumper cables,” referencing shock therapy. Spence won.

The victory springboarded Atwater to Washington where he worked as assistant to political director Ed Rollins in the Reagan White House. A former boxer, Rollins pulled no punches in his book Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms. My Life in American Politics, describing Atwater as a ruthless person who just had to drive in one more stake. In the 1984 reelection campaign against Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro, Atwater turned his attention to the financial background of Ferraro and her husband. It was unnecessary, with President Reagan winning easily.

Where Atwater did make a difference in presidential politics, arguably the difference in 1988, was as campaign manager in Vice President George H.W. Bush’s White House race. A key issue in the campaign against the Democrat nominee, Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis, was crime, and Atwater set about painting Dukakis as soft on crime with Rembrandt-like brushstrokes.

Although Dukakis had inherited a policy of weekend prison furloughs for first-degree murderers, he vetoed a bill passed by the legislature that would have ended the practice. The result was an effective TV ad, produced not by the Bush campaign but by an independent group called Americans for Bush. The ad featured convicted murderer Willie Horton, an African-American, who kidnapped and tortured a couple while out on furlough.

With Atwater’s approval, the Bush campaign ran a Willie Horton ad of its own, but without showing his photo. Atwater said he would “make Horton Dukakis’ running mate.” Another ad showed criminals going into and out of prison through revolving doors. This, combined with other issues including questioning Dukakis’ patriotism for opposing a law to mandate the Pledge of Allegiance in Massachusetts schools, helped Bush overcome a 17-point Dukakis lead to win by eight points. Atwater had said he would “strip the bark off the little bastard.” There are many, me included, who believe that Bush would not have lost the 1992 election had Atwater lived. Think what he would have done to Bill Clinton.

Following the election, Atwater became chairman of the Republican National Committee. Imagine him being chairman today instead of a three-time loser, the hapless Ronna McDaniel, who seems more concerned with how she looks on TV than giving the party the strategic facelift it needs.

To those Republicans who cringe at the thought of using Atwater-like tactics against today’s Democrats, a party steering America toward socialism at best and communism at worst, I paraphrase Barry Goldwater: Ruthlessness in the fight for victory is no vice. And meekness in the pursuit of votes is no virtue. Think the Democrats are not using ruthless tactics? Just ask Donald Trump.

I believe if the GOP does not win the White House next year it never will again. Barack Obama spoke of a fight where we bring a knife and they bring a gun. In the last three elections they brought a bazooka and we brought a pea shooter. With the freedom of America in peril, playing nice will not lead to victory.

With too much at stake for pussyfooting, what would Lee Atwater do?

Doug Gamble contributed speech material to Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, including his 1988 presidential campaign, and other Republican office holders and candidates.

Image: National Archives