used by political opponents against presidential candidate
Michael Dukakis, who as governor of Massachusetts sup-
ported the furlough program.
Few times in recent history has a single convicted
felon been so critically linked to national affairs as
was William Horton, an African American felon
commonly nicknamed Willie Horton by the media.
Horton’s name became linked with the political de-
struction of Michael Dukakis through negative cam-
paigning, the election of George H. W. Bush, and
the racial hysteria of the 1980’s.
Horton and two accomplices were convicted of
killing a gas station attendant in 1974 during a rob-
bery. Though it is not known if Horton stabbed the
attendant, in Massachusetts any accomplice to a
qualifying felony at which a murder takes place is
guilty of felony murder. He was sentenced to life in
prison without the possibility of parole and entered
the Massachusetts prison system. That system had
developed a furlough program to reward good be-
havior among inmates as an incentive to assist with
control of the inmate populations. Furlough pro-
grams were common among the states, but Massa-
chusetts was unique in that it would allow a two-day
furlough for convicted murderers. Horton received
one of these furloughs in 1986, and he failed to re-
turn to serve the remainder of his life sentence when
his two days of freedom ended. The following year,
Horton surfaced in Maryland as the perpetrator of a
violent crime. He raped a woman twice, viciously as-
saulted her fiancé, and then stole the fiancé’s car. He
was soon captured by the police, tried, and con-
victed in Maryland, which refused to return Horton
to Massachusetts on the chance that he might again
be released.
In 1988, Horton’s story was used repeatedly to at-
tack Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, who
was running for the presidency. Dukakis had inher-
ited the furlough system when he took office, but he
did believe in its effectiveness. The attacks began
during the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries,
when Senator Al Gore of Tennessee used the Massa-
chusetts prison furlough program to suggest that
Dukakis was weak on crime. There is some dispute as
to whether or not Gore used Horton’s name in these
attacks, but once Dukakis won the primary contest,
the seeds were sown for the general election, in
which the governor faced Vice President George
H. W. Bush. Bush’s campaign team included future
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and future
Fox News president Roger Ailes, and it was run by
Lee Atwater, a seasoned Republican political war-
rior. The campaign decided to make Willie Horton a
household name.
Two negative campaign ads were produced re-
garding Horton. One showed him confronting the
camera in a glaring mug shot, and the other showed
a revolving door at a prison. The infamous revolving-
door commercial depicted a stream of minority pris-
oners leaving a prison, implying that under a Dukakis
administration, African American felons would
stream out of correctional facilities to invade Amer-
ica’s neighborhoods. Horton’s visage is consideredThe Eighties in America Horton, William 489
The infamous photo of William Horton. The convicted murderer’s
visage featured prominently in campaign ads attacking Michael
Dukakis’s record on crime during the 1988 presidential cam-
paign.(AP/Wide World Photos)