Americans for Bush

Americans for Bush said in June 1988 that "it would spend $10 million in an effort to elect" George H.W. Bush as President. "The effort, which will include a series of television commercials, is independent of Mr. Bush's Presidential campaign and is being underwritten by the National Security Political Action Committee," the Associated Press reported June 25, 1988.

In November 1988, "the group behind Americans for Bush, the far-right National Security Political Action Committee, an outfit close to Republican senator Jesse Helms, raises over $9 million in connection with the [Willie Horton] ad,"

The George H.W. Bush campaign "twice complains to the FEC that the group is misusing its candidate's name to raise money. [Floyd G.] Brown later says that both the complaints and the Bush campaign's repudiation of the ad is merely for show: 'If they were really interested in stopping this, do you think they would have waited that long to send us a letter?' Two years later, the New Republic unearths evidence showing that the Bush campaign was indeed in collusion with NSPAC, and that media consultant Roger Ailes had worked on the ad with Brown. The Democrats file charges of unlawful cooperation between the campaign and NSPAC, though the FEC's Republican members succeed in quashing the investigation in time for the 1992 election. By that point, Brown has left NSPAC and set up his own outfit, the Presidential Victory Committee, an offshoot of Citizens United, the group he created in November 1988. Brown's group will figure heavily in the persecution of Bill Clinton."

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Citizens United
 * Craig Shirley
 * Willie Horton

Profiles

 * Overview: Citizens United, The New Stealth PACs/Public Citizen, accessed July 1, 2007.

External articles

 * "Chapter Two: The Willie Horton Independent Expenditure," InsidePolitics.org, undated.
 * "Racism in the campaign," Ten O'Clock News, WGBH (Boston), October 25, 1988: "Alvin Poussaint talks about racism in the 1988 presidential campaign."
 * Jake Tapper, "The Willie Horton alumni association. Memories of the controversial 1988 ad are stirred as George W. Bush appears at a university with ties to the ad's creator," Salon, August 25, 2000.
 * Bob Somerby, "Dissembling Sean played the Horton Card. Behind that, there lies a long story," The Daily Howler, December 1, 2002.
 * "Ingraham, Hannity revived claim that 'Al Gore brought up Willie Horton'," Media Matters for America, February 16, 2005.