WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT Kelly (R) campaign runs shot-for-shot remake of racist Willie Horton ad
Conservative former Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly’s campaign for a vacant seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court is running an ad on social media that is nearly a shot for shot remake of the “Willie Horton ad” run by supporters of former President George H.W. Bush during his 1988 presidential race against former Democratic Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.
The original ad was widely derided as racist for its use of Horton’s mugshot and conflation of Blackness with criminality. The ad attacks Dukakis for “soft-on-crime” policies because of his support for Massachusetts’ “weekend furlough” program, which allowed people in prison to leave for a day or more to go to work or home. While out of prison as part of this program, which began under a Republican governor, Horton — a convicted murderer — was able to escape and went on to sexually assault a woman and stab her fiance in a 1987 home invasion.
The 1988 ad showed photos of Bush, Dukakis and Horton over a simple blue background while a narrator detailed the candidates’ views on the death penalty and Horton’s actions. The ad remains a symbol for the use of dog whistle racism as a tactic to scare white voters during political campaigns.
On Tuesday, Kelly’s official Twitter account posted his campaign’s version of the ad, which shows pictures of Kelly and his liberal opponent, Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz, over a simple blue background while a narrator details the sentence she delivered to Quantrell Bounds, a Thiensville man who sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl and posted a video of the incident to Facebook.
https://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/kelly-campaign-runs-shot-for-shot-remake-of-racist-willie-horton-ad/
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