You clearly don't know your own parties history if you dare ask us to be inclusive.
Do you know who Lee Atwater is? He's the Karl Rove of the 80's.
During his years in South Carolina, Atwater became well known for running hard edged campaigns based on emotional wedge issues.
Atwater's aggressive tactics were first demonstrated during the 1980 congressional campaigns. He was a campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence in his campaign for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed. Atwater's tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by "independent pollsters" to inform white suburbanites that Turnipseed was a member of the NAACP. He also sent out last-minute letters from Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) telling voters that Turnipseed would disarm America and turn it over to liberals and Communists. At a press briefing, Atwater planted a "reporter" who rose and said, "We understand Turnipseed has had psychotic treatment." Atwater later told the reporters off the record that Turnipseed "got hooked up to jumper cables" - a reference to electroconvulsive therapy that Turnipseed underwent as a teenager.[6]
"Lee seemed to delight in making fun of a suicidal 16-year-old who was treated for depression with electroshock treatments", Turnipseed recalled.
Now do you want to defend Lee for doing this? Well then look at how sorry Lee was after he got a brain tumor:
Shortly before his death, Atwater said he had converted to Catholicism, through the help of Friar John Hardon[12] and, 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 letter to Tom Turnipseed dated June 28, 1990, 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.
Rollins tells several Atwater stories in his 1996 book, Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms. He states that Atwater ran a dirty tricks operation against vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro which included the allegation that Ferraro's parents had been indicted of numbers running in the 1940s. (Although the allegation was true, Ferraro's parents were never convicted.) Rollins also described Atwater as "ruthless", "Ollie North in civilian clothes", and someone who "just had to drive in one more stake".
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. The '80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.
There's more. Read about your parties Southern Strategy. You may not be a racist, but your party purposely appeals to racists.
Remember the Willie Horton story? Get this:
Ironically, prison furlough programs had been long established in California during the governorship of Republican Ronald Reagan, prior to 1980.
One last lie from Lee: During the election, a number of allegations were made in the media about Dukakis's personal life, including the unsubstantiated claim that Dukakis's wife Kitty had burned an American flag to protest the Vietnam War, and that Dukakis himself had been treated for a mental illness.
So how dare you call me divisive? How do you not be divisive with a party like this? We have to get tougher with your kind, not kinder. You act like if we give you an olive branch, you won't whip us with it the first chance you get.
Sorry, you should have been more inclusive when you had the majority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater
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