Jump to content

Talk:Lee Atwater: Difference between revisions

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous edit
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
NPOV
Cewbot (talk | contribs)
Bots
7,558,800 edits
m Maintain {{WPBS}} and vital articles: 2 WikiProject templates. Create {{WPBS}}. Keep majority rating "C" in {{WPBS}}. Remove 2 same ratings as {{WPBS}} in {{WikiProject Biography}}, {{WikiProject United States}}.
 
(106 intermediate revisions by 55 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Talkheader}}
What's with the Rove and Bush comment?
{{WikiProject banner shell|class=C|living=no|listas=Atwater, Lee|
{{WikiProject Biography|1=|politician-work-group=yes|politician-priority=low|needs-photo=no}}
{{WikiProject United States |importance=Low |USGov=y}}
}}
The Ed Rollings quote where Rollins quotes Mary Matalin is hearsay. This would never pass muster in a court of law, and hearsay shouldn't have any place on Wikipedia; it serves to call into question Wikipedia's veracity and supposed non-biased stance. [[Special:Contributions/2601:987:200:5130:C554:58AF:74B4:620F|2601:987:200:5130:C554:58AF:74B4:620F]] ([[User talk:2601:987:200:5130:C554:58AF:74B4:620F|talk]]) 22:55, 26 February 2023 (UTC)


:Wikipedia is not a court of law, nor do we follow the standards of a court of law. The quote is [[WP:RS|reliably sourced]], so there's no doubts to the veracity of Wikipedia here. Nor are we biased in presenting a reliably sourced statement. If you want to argue that it does not belong on this page, you're going to need a better argument. – [[User:Muboshgu|Muboshgu]] ([[User talk:Muboshgu#top|talk]]) 23:01, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

::The recording of the conversation was published in The Nation and also placed on Youtube, so you can hear it yourself. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8E3ENrKrQ&t=52s It's also been repeated in many other WP:RS, such as the New York Times. --[[User:Nbauman|Nbauman]] ([[User talk:Nbauman|talk]]) 19:57, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Bounce polling is NOT a research technique, it's a smear tactic. For example, when Bush did it against McCain, he called up 10,000 homes in South Carolina, and asked: "If you found out that John McCain fostered 3 black children out of wedlock with his mistress, would you vote for him?"

It's not true, but the idea is make people think that John McCain has fostered 3 children out of wedlock. The polsters don't care about the answers (hence, it's not a research technique). The only purpose of it is to make people think bad things about the other guy, and that's a smear tactic.

--[[User:Raul654|Raul654]] 16:20, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

----

The linking of Atwater doing or inventing bounce polling comes from ''[[Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them]]'', a book by [[liberal]] American humorist [[Al Franken]]. Franken does not cite any source. Jimmy Breslin, in an August 3, 1989 column in [[Newsday]], states that Atwater denied it. I am removing the reference until another source is cited. (Breslin's POV is almost a lock on Franken's, so it's not a case of clashing POVs.) [[User:Ellsworth|Ellsworth]] 23:01, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

== Atwater/Rove/Bush connection ==

Dropped this sentence:

:During that election, Atwater was assigned a "minder" by the Bush campaign, [[George W. Bush]]. The younger Bush's political strategist, [[Karl Rove]], would later employ Atwater's [[dirty tricks]] tactics against [[John McCain]] in the [[2000]] Republican primary.

This has been disputed, please cite sources if it is to be in the article. [[User:Ellsworth|Ellsworth]] 20:37, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

:I've restored some of this material, with clarifications. It's well known that Atwater was a political mentor and personal friend of Karl Rove, but their relationship actually predates the 1988 presidential campaign by more than 15 years. According to ''Time'' magazine (December 20, 1999), Atwater "ran Rove's successful campaign to become president of the College Republicans in 1973." ''Boy Genius,'' the biography of Rove by Lou Dubose, Jan Reid and Carl M. Cannon, also offers details about their friendship and notes allegations of Rove's involvement in dirty tricks dating back to the 1970s. (See, for example, pages 10-12.) The fact that George W. Bush had an office across the hall from Lee Atwater so that he could serve as a "minder" during the 1988 presidential campaign has also been reported in a number of places, including the ''Austin American-Statesman'' (February 21, 1999).

:I've left out the specific reference to dirty tricks against McCain in 2000. Atwater was long dead by then, and although he was a mentor of Karl Rove during his lifetime, it doesn't seem accurate to suggest that Atwater was the mastermind of every dirty trick with which Rove or others have been associated. He's only responsible for the activities that he himself planned and undertook. --[[User:Sheldon Rampton|Sheldon Rampton]] 07:52, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

::That looks good. [[User:Ellsworth|Ellsworth]] 23:45, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

== Lead paragraph ==

I've taken out the references to Terry McAuliffe and James Carville that an anonymous user keeps trying to add to the lead paragraph. Atwater was a Republican party strategist and a personal friend and mentor of both Karl Rove and George W. Bush. He was not a friend and mentor of McAuliffe or Carville. The anonymous user seems to be trying to insert a sort of "forced balance" into the lead that is actually POV rather than documentable fact. It may or may not be the case that McAuliffe and Carville use similar methods, but it is definitely ''not'' the case that they learned their political skills under his tutelage.

If other people find the current version unsatisfactory, I would suggest removing the entire sentence that begins, "Though Atwater died in 1991..." His relationship with Rove and Bush is described with greater precision elsewhere in the article anyway, and I don't think it needs to be part of the lead paragraph. --[[User:Sheldon Rampton|Sheldon Rampton]] 06:23, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

== Incongruous ==

This paragraph is incongruous:

"Atwater not only torpedoed enemies, he often made efforts to damage or destroy Republicans as well. Ed Rollins, who managed Ronald Reagan's 1984 re-election campaign, tells several Atwater stories in his 1996 book, "Bare Knuckles And Back Rooms." According to Rollins, Atwater ran a dirty tricks operation in 1984 against Vice-Presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. This included the accurate allegation that Ferraro's parents had been indicted - but never convicted (this fact, of course, went unmentioned)- of numbers running in the 1940s. Ferraro disappeared for a few days to 'recover' from the accusation. Rollins also described Atwater as 'ruthless', 'Ollie North in civilian clothes,' and one who 'just had to drive in one more stake.'"


The lead sentence states that Atwater used his "dirty tricks" against Republican candidates as well, and then goes on in the rest of the paragraph to talk about a particular dirty trick agains't Geraldine Ferraro, not only a Democrat, but a potential Democratic Vice-President of the United States. --[[User:B. Phillips|B. Phillips]] 22:00, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

== NPOV ==

This article needs to be more balanced. It make Atwater out to be a total monster, which he wasn't. --[[User:Rogerd|rogerd]] 01:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 06:55, 26 January 2024

The Ed Rollings quote where Rollins quotes Mary Matalin is hearsay. This would never pass muster in a court of law, and hearsay shouldn't have any place on Wikipedia; it serves to call into question Wikipedia's veracity and supposed non-biased stance. 2601:987:200:5130:C554:58AF:74B4:620F (talk) 22:55, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a court of law, nor do we follow the standards of a court of law. The quote is reliably sourced, so there's no doubts to the veracity of Wikipedia here. Nor are we biased in presenting a reliably sourced statement. If you want to argue that it does not belong on this page, you're going to need a better argument. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:01, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The recording of the conversation was published in The Nation and also placed on Youtube, so you can hear it yourself. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8E3ENrKrQ&t=52s It's also been repeated in many other WP:RS, such as the New York Times. --Nbauman (talk) 19:57, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk:Lee_Atwater&oldid=1199168129"