Documentary chronicles Atwater's rise to prominence

Lee Atwater, a blues-playing rascal raised in Aiken, rose to the post of national chairman of the Republican National Committee and, arguably, became a household name in the process.

Karl Rove and George W. Bush called him mentor, and he played a pivotal role in the elections of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, having written the GOP playbook — complete, claim detractors, with dirty tricks and an assassin's sensibility.

Director Stefan Forbes' just released documentary, "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story," chronicles his rise to prominence. In a series of interviews with Atwater's closest friends and adversaries, the film assays its subject's part in remaking of the Republican Party. To most conservatives, Forbes insists, this "godfather of the modern negative political campaign" remains a hero "for his deep understanding of the American heartland, his expert manipulation of the media, and his unapologetic vision of politics as war."

An InterPositive Media production already on DVD (www.boogiemanfilm.com), the 76-minute film has yet to be scheduled for a Charleston screening.

Featured in the picture are political observer Jack Bass of Charleston, Ed Rollins, former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, Tucker Eskew, Howard Fineman, Mary Matalin and Sam Donaldson, among others. Archival footage includes scenes of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, as well as Ann Richards, Ted Kennedy, Bob Dole and former President George H.W. Bush.

"I first became fascinated with Lee Atwater in 1989 when I saw him on TV, playing the blues at an Inaugural Gala," says Forbes in the movie's press notes. "The more I learned about Lee Atwater, the more his contradictions intrigued me. Atwater's life has been likened to Greek tragedy, and despite the hyperbole, the comparison may be apt."

Born in Atlanta, Atwater grew up in Aiken. As a teenager in Columbia, he played guitar in a rock in Aiken. As a teenager in Columbia, he played guitar in a rock band, The Upsetters Revue, and remained an R&B fan all his life. He graduated from Newberry College, then began his political ascent during the 1970s. In the 1980 election, he worked on the campaigns of Thurmond and Gov. Carroll Campbell. By this time, Atwater was earning a reputation for orchestrating tough, edgy campaigns based on emotional "wedge issues."

He was a campaign consultant to S.C. Republican incumbent Floyd Spence in his campaign for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed, devising tactics that allegedly included "push polling" in the form of bogus surveys by "independent pollsters" to sway white suburbanites who may have been on the fence.

Atwater ventured to Washington after the 1980 election to serve as an aide in the Reagan administration, toiling under political director Ed Rollins. During his years in the Nation's Capital, Atwater became associated with then-Vice President Bush, who selected him as his 1988 presidential campaign manager.

A characteristically aggressive media onslaught featured a TV ad related to the case of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in a Massachusetts prison who committed a rape while participating in a weekend furlough. The furlough program was supported by then-governor Dukakis (but actually had been created by the previous governor, a Republican). The Horton campaign, originally produced by the independent group Americans for Bush, may or may not have been critical in helping Bush get elected.

During that campaign, Atwater became friends with future President George W. Bush. After the election, Atwater was named chairman of the RNC. But on the morning of March 5, 1990, Atwater collapsed during a fundraising event on behalf of Sen. Phil Gramm. Doctors found an unusually aggressive form of brain tumor. Radiation therapy was unsuccessful, and he died, age 39, on March 29, 1991.

Before his death, as an act of repentance, the newly converted Catholic issued a number of public and written letters of apology to people he had opposed during his career. In a February 1991 article for Life Magazine, Atwater wrote: "My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood."

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707.

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