He's the first Detroit player to hit 12 homers in May since Willie Horton in 1968.

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In so doing, the campaign made Willie Horton the most famous fleeing felon in history.

CNN: Jeff Greenfield: Party like it's 1988

Some of the worst ads in recent memory, such as the Willie Horton ad in 1988, have been broadcast by these kinds of groups.

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Bossie, who presumably picked up his notion of fair play partly from his old colleague Floyd Brown, the creator of the Willie Horton campaign commercial.

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Dukakis thought the ads about furloughed killer Willie Horton did not need to be answered simply because they were stupid and wrong, ignoring the fact that they were devastating.

CNN: It's All In The Timing

Remember Michael Dukakis and the Willie Horton ads?

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In other words, it was well within the strike zone the Republicans institutionalized in 1988 when they turned the GOP's amiable hitman Lee Atwater loose with his "Willie Horton" ad against Michael Dukakis.

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They were thoroughly humiliated by Bush senior's attack dog, the late Lee Atwater, who used everything from the state of Boston harbour to the activities of Willie Horton, a murderer and rapist, to destroy Mr Dukakis.

ECONOMIST: A curse on both their houses

He was the political director of an independent campaign committee called Americans for Bush, which produced and broadcast a commercial featuring Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who received a weekend furlough in Massachusetts and then committed several grisly crimes.

NEWYORKER: Money Unlimited

Mr Clinton had seen how George Bush senior used the release on furlough of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer, to destroy his Democratic rival for the presidency, Michael Dukakis, and had worked hard to reclaim crime as a Democratic issue.

ECONOMIST: Bagehot