Harvey LeRoy "Lee" Atwater (February 27, 1951 – March 29, 1991) was an American political consultant and strategist for the Republican Party.

When Lee was five, his three-year-old brother, Joe, died of third-degree burns when he pulled a deep fryer full of hot oil onto himself.

He released an album called Red Hot & Blue on Curb Records, featuring Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Sam Moore, Chuck Jackson, and King.

[4] In the Los Angeles Times of April 5, 1990, Robert Hilburn wrote about the album: "The most entertaining thing about this ensemble salute to spicy Memphis-style 1950s and 1960s R&B is the way it lets you surprise your friends.

Play a selection such as 'Knock on Wood' or 'Bad Boy' for someone without identifying the singer, then watch their eyes bulge when you reveal that it's the controversial national chairman of the Republican Party, Lee Atwater.

[2] During the 1970s and the 1980 election, Atwater rose to prominence in the South Carolina Republican Party, actively participating in the campaigns of Governor Carroll Campbell and Senator Strom Thurmond.

He was a campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence when he ran for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed.

Atwater's tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by so-called independent pollsters, to inform white suburbanites that Turnipseed was a member of the NAACP.

[9] He also sent out last-minute letters from Senator Thurmond telling voters that Turnipseed would disarm the United States, and turn it over to liberals and Communists.

After the 1980 election, Atwater went to Washington and became an aide in the Ronald Reagan administration, working under political director Ed Rollins.

[13] The day after the 1984 presidential election, Atwater became a senior partner at the political consulting firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly.

[15] Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Congressional caucuses Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other As a member of the Reagan administration in 1981, Atwater gave an anonymous interview to political scientist Alexander P. Lamis.

Part of the interview was printed in Lamis' book The Two-Party South, later reprinted in Southern Politics in the 1990s with Atwater's name revealed.

All that you need to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues that he's campaigned on since 1964, and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis supported a felon furlough program originally begun in 1972, under Republican Governor Francis Sargent.

In 1976, the Massachusetts legislature passed a measure to ban furloughs for first-degree murderers, but Governor Dukakis vetoed the bill.

[18] Soon afterward, Willie Horton, who was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder for stabbing a boy to death during a robbery, was released on weekend furlough, during which he kidnapped a young couple, tortured the man, and repeatedly raped the woman.

The issue of furlough for first-degree murderers was originally brought up by Democratic candidate Al Gore, during a presidential primary debate.

The original commercial was produced by Americans for Bush, an independent group managed by Larry McCarthy, and Republicans benefited from the coverage it attracted in the national media.

Referring to Dukakis, Atwater declared that he would "strip the bark off the little bastard" and "make Willie Horton his running mate".

During the campaign, future President George W. Bush took an office across the hall from Atwater, where his job was to serve as his father's eyes and ears.

[26] Following Bush's victory, Atwater focused on organizing a public relations campaign against Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.

[27] At the time Atwater became ill in 1990, he was supporting the bid of Representative Tommy Robinson to gain the Republican gubernatorial nomination to oppose Clinton that fall.

"[31] In 1988, Atwater and several friends, including Don Sundquist, founded a restaurant named Red Hot & Blue in Arlington, Virginia.

[40] In an act of repentance, Atwater issued a number of public and written letters to individuals to whom he had been opposed during his political career.

In a June 28, 1990, letter to Tom Turnipseed, he stated, "It is very important to me that I let you know that out of everything that has happened in my career, one of the low points remains the so-called 'jumper cable' episode", adding, "My illness has taught me something about the nature of humanity, love, brotherhood, and relationships that I never understood, and probably never would have.

Funeral services were held at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Atwater's final place of residence, Columbia, South Carolina.

[43] Sidney Blumenthal has speculated that, had Atwater lived, he would have run a stronger re-election campaign for Bush than the president's unsuccessful 1992 effort against Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.

The one-man play Atwater: Fixin' to Die by Robert Myers premiered in 1992 with Dylan Baker at New York's West Bank Theatre, directed by Ethan McSweeny, and has been performed in various venues more than a dozen times since.