Taking this brand new Atlantic piece as a basis, what if Lee Atwater is not in the picture for Bush ’88?
Was Gary Hart Set Up?
The Atlantic / November 2018
By James Fallows
If one believes this deathbed confession perhaps Gary Hart does indeed sweep forward in the primaries and then defeat Bush. As an assumption he wins to keep discussion rolling how does Hart actually do as President?
Was Gary Hart Set Up?
The Atlantic / November 2018
By James Fallows
“I thought there was something fishy about the whole thing from the very beginning,” Strother recalled. “Lee told me that he had set up the whole Monkey Business deal. ‘I did it!’ he told me. ‘I fixed Hart.’ After he called me that time, I thought, My God! It’s true!”
[…]
What are we to make of Strother’s late-in-life revelation of Atwater’s deathbed confession? Hart’s reputation, deserved or not, certainly gave Atwater something to work with, if that’s what he did. (“It would be just like the perversity of history for someone to undertake an effort that might well have happened by itself,” Matt Bai told me when I spoke with him recently.)
If one believes this deathbed confession perhaps Gary Hart does indeed sweep forward in the primaries and then defeat Bush. As an assumption he wins to keep discussion rolling how does Hart actually do as President?
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