by pundits to have influenced the election in Bush’s
favor, though it is doubtful that Dukakis would have
beat Bush even if these ads had never been run.
Nonetheless, Horton’s name became synonymous
in political circles with negative campaigning. To
“go Horton” came to mean to “go negative” in a cam-
paign.
Impact During the 1980’s, racial tensions increased,
especially in U.S. cities and suburbs, and the Repub-
lican Party successfully positioned itself as the party
that was “tough on crime.” The story told by the
commercials of an African American raping a white
woman because a New England liberal governor was
too nice to him therefore struck a major chord with
the U.S. electorate. Dukakis’s defeat, whether the
direct result of the Horton ads or not, became associ-
ated with them, and the tactics those ads repre-
sented were thought of thereafter as both reprehen-
sible and effective.
Further Reading
Anderson, David C.Crime and the Politics of Hysteria.
New York: Random House, 1995.
Feagin, Joe R., and Hernan Vera.White Racism. New
York: Routledge, 1995.
Gest, Ted.Crime and Politics. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2001.
Pepinsky, Harold E., and Richard Quinney.Criminol-
ogy as Peacemaking. Indianapolis: Indiana Univer-
sity Press, 1991.
R. Matthew Beverlin
See also African Americans; Atwater, Lee; Bush,
George H. W.; Crime; Dukakis, Michael; Elections in
the United States, 1988.
Houston, Whitney
Identification African American singer
Born August 9, 1963; Newark, New Jersey
Houston was one of the most popular female pop singers of
the 1980’s.
Born into a musical family, Whitney Houston discov-
ered her love of music at an early age. During ele-
mentary school, Houston sang in the New Hope
Baptist Church choir, and by high school she was
performing professionally with her mother, Cissy
Houston, and her cousins, Dionne and Dee Dee
Warwick, in the gospel group the Drinkard Sisters.
After her high school graduation in 1981, Houston
continued to develop her professional music career
by signing a contract with Tara Productions. In 1983,
she sang “Eternal Love” on the albumPaul Jabara
and Friends, which was produced by Columbia Rec-
ords.
In 1983, Houston moved even closer to stardom
when she signed a recording contract with the leg-
endary Clive Davis of Arista Records. Her self-titled
debut album,Whitney Houston, was released in 1985
and became an instant success. Catapulting the
young singer to superstar status, the album sold over
thirteen million copies at its release. Famous songs
from the album included “You Give Good Love,”490 Houston, Whitney The Eighties in America
Whitney Houston answers questions from the press after the 1986
MTV Video Music Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.(AP/Wide
World Photos)