Talk:Willie Horton

message: Why does it say that Gore "mentioned the Horton incident" in the NY Daily News Debate when he absolutely did not?  Gore only mentioned the furlough program in Massachusetts, but he did not bring up Horton whatsoever in the debate. This is a well known fact and a simple archive of the debate can prove it.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What's the "evidence" that the Bush campaign had any involvement in the Revolving Door ad? To say that the Bush campaign "claimed" not to have produced it, is like saying (to take an example from the same campaign) that Dukakis "claimed" that Donna Brazile was acting on her own when she accused Bush of being an adulterer. Brazile said she was, Dukakis said she was, and that's accepted as being the way it was. Seems to be much the same with Revolving Door. Ellsworth 18:59, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The rules for independent expenditures are very strict -- it's not just a matter of whether the Bush campaign produced the ad directly, but whether they had any kind of involvement ("cooperation or coordination" is the official phrase, I think) in its creation, production, or airing. The evidence is that Ailes openly bragged that they would use Horton in TV ads, McCarthy's close relationship with Ailes, the suspicious timing with "Revolving Doors", and the fact that an employee of Ailes's firm worked on both ads. RadicalSubversiv E 19:13, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the re-write you did is a fair assessment. Thanks. Ellsworth 19:50, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: NB the discussion above should reference the "Weekend Passes" ad, as the one produced by the independent group. "Revolving Door" was produced by the Bush campaign. The article has it right. Ellsworth 21:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Point

message: It seems odd to me that most of this article is about the Dukakis political campaign, when it is supposed to be an article about a person. Maybe we should put in some more stuff about Willie Horton? Kinghy 06:28, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Willie Horton: The Person 

message: You know...some people might actually want to read about the man himself and not him as political weaponry. Wikipedia is getting really lame...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.77.135.111 (talk • contribs) 
:Well, he's 6'1, heavier-set these days, has soulful brown eyes, is a bit of a daydreamer, and his hobbies include making animal figurines out of chewed up playing cards, and murdering people. 68.0.119.181 01:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Horton's crimes are fact, but his connection to Dukakis...is somewhere between distant and nonexistent - you mean other than as a demonstration of the results of wrong-minded policy that Dukakis supported?TheDarkOneLives (talk) 12:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  William Horton 

message: I just added a "dubious" tag to the assertion that Willie Horton was referenced more times during the 1992 campaign than during the 1988 campaign. This has already been "fact" tagged for half a year. If sourcing is not forthcoming in the next week or so it should simply be removed from the article. Cgingold (talk) 00:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the intention of the sentence is that Willie Horton was additionally referenced in 1992. I've cleaned the sentence to make it look less like what you seem to get from it. I can't find a citation at the moment but if anyone can, I'd appreciate it --Utopianfiat (talk) 19:27, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  1992 campaign 

message: I see that this article is considered part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography and Wikipedia:WikiProject Crime.  These categorizations seem somewhat beside the point.  In a vague sort of way, of course, this article is a biography -- and of course Willie Horton is a criminal -- but the notable aspect is not the biography as such but the use of this man as an icon in political discourse.
Is the article better categorized, perhaps, within Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics or still better, Wikipedia:WikiProject Propaganda if such a thing were to exist?
75.71.67.2 (talk) 00:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Politics? 

message: Hi. I recently removed a handful of material that sat tagged as "without verifiability" since 2008/2009.  This is per WP:V, and particularly WP:ALIVE.  The claims made are interesting, so I leave them here in hopes that someone finds suitable verifiability for them so they can be put back into the article.  Regards.  --Ds13 (talk) 16:54, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Recently removed material, preserved here

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Willie Horton. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/95/2/pulitzers.asp
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 05:46, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I think a strong case can be made that this article should be moved to William Horton. We literally have quote from the man in this article saying he did not go by Willie and, in fact, resented the name. "Willie Horton" may be the name he was most commonly known by, but I cannot think of another living person whose article title is a name that person never personally went by (and was contrived in order to attack that person). The ad is the "Willie Horton ad," but the person is William Horton. --216.12.10.118 (talk) 23:41, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move Request 

message: One of the notable characteristics of the ad campaign, now that it has passed into history and others have a broad perspective to analyze it, is that Horton is black. Our article states, with secondary cite, "It is believed that the racial overtone of the ad wound up being a key aspect of the way the ad was remembered and later studied." Horton himself is also quoted as saying the ad plays or racial stereotypes about him. Multiple other details in the article discuss the racial aspect despite some denials at the time that there was racial intent. Given the relevance of race to the ad, and that Horton is the person whose race is at issue, his race is a notable characteristic of him and a relevant major detail in light of our article content. Therefore, per WP:LEDE and WP:RS, I think we should mention this detail. Other bio articles might not mention race (or at least not so early/prominently) but again, other people might not have race as a relevant or defining characteristic in relation to notability. Other editors disagree, stating merely that we should not mention it in the lede. Please discuss if you have an actual basis in content guideline or policy to exclude it. DMacks (talk) 21:35, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Identifying his race 

message: The lasting legacy of Willie Horton is the "Willie Horton ad", an ad by supporters of GHW Bush, which is widely connected to concept of "dog-whistle politics". Since the 1988, pretty much every RS mention of Horton has been in the context of this ad and the singular focus has been on its relationship to race, crime and dog-whistle politics. And there's no shortage of RS coverage since 1988: I was actually surprised by how often and how regularly this issue was raised in NYT, WAPO and other major newspapers in the last 30 years. It goes without saying that it's been widely covered in the academic literature. By omitting this from the lead, we are doing our readers an enormous disservice. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:11, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The statement you had in the lead was inaccurate. It was not a "Bush" ad. And secondly, it's already in the main body. I might could get behind having it in the lead.....but it had to be properly stated.Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:12, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why did you not then properly state it instead of wasting everyone's time and somehow again edit in a dubious manner on a race-related topic? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not the one who wants in in. You still don't get how things work here do you?Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:23, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  Can I then restore the content to the lead with the clarification that the ad was by a pro-Bush PAC? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:34, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd call it what it's called in the "Fall campaign" section.Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:42, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead should cover the infamous dog-whistle ad 

message: Can we discuss whether this is the prime  topic for "Willie Horton"? Perhaps it's just that I recognized politics as a theatre of the absurd long ago, but isn't this a primarily US topic? And almost anyone in the US would associate "Willie Horton" with the Detroit Tigers power hitter rather than as a political tactic in an election. I came here because "Willie Horton" was mentioned in a thread on racism topics at ANI and couldn't I figure what the relationship between a power hitter and racism was. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that somehow this Willie was the short blip on the radar from a failed election campaign. How does someone in the news for the 10-12 weeks a presidential election campaign USED to last, and only as an example, be more important than a baseball player that played well for near 20 years? Generally we make it way too easy for a sports figure to have a bio....but Horton wasn't a flash in the pan. He was a solid player for many years on a pennant winning team in a major market. However, the Horton here is a nobody (actually less than that), and this shouldn't be a biography at all...it should be merged into an article on the Dukakis campaign. He doesn't qualify for a bio, and certainly isn't the primary topic for this title. John from Idegon (talk) 04:02, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: This specific part of the campaign is independently notable (and remains discussed even over the decades since), as can be seen by the mile of citatations, and there is also enough content here (IMO) for a stand-alone article. One good question is whether the person is the notable topic here (or notable himself at all), vs only the ad campaign and other poster-childing of him. Should we reframe it as the latter due to BLP1E? DMacks (talk) 04:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primary subject? 

message: One sentence of the introduction reads as follows:
"The re-naming has been speculated to be the product of racist stereotyping."
Racism is a terrible scourge.
Therefore it is a terrible idea to include speculation about what may or may not have been racist 34 years ago.
Note that this speculation is based on the use of the inaccurate name "Willie" instead of the correct name, "William".
That is a colossally meager basis for asserting racism.  There is not even anything pejorative about the name "Willie". 
By pointing out every possible case of potential racism, such claims seriously detract from the no-questions-about-it-most-definitely racism by blurring the lines between racism and maybe? or maybe not? racism.
:Sorry, this is nonsense. The campaign was unambiguously recognised as racist at the time. the Bush campaign disavowed it for that reason. You are introducing a modern, 2020s "racism-denialist" perspective that is out of sync with the perspective of the times. 1.145.157.5 (talk) 03:59, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Let's omit speculation