A month after the 1988 election, Joe Biden joked about the “Willie Horton” ad — widely viewed as racist — to a predominantly white, conservative audience in South Carolina.
His joke, designed to boost his tough-on-crime credentials, can be seen in a previously unpublished video obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The notorious “Willie Horton” ad attacked Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis for being soft on crime while he was Massachusetts’ governor. Dukakis lost to George H.W. Bush after the Bush campaign aired a separate “Revolving Door” ad that rammed the message home. Bush later distanced himself from the original Horton ad, which was crafted by notorious South Carolina GOP operative Lee Atwater for an outside group.
Horton, now 67 and still in prison, was a black man who was born in South Carolina and raped a woman while on a short-term release as part of a Massachusetts furlough program. He was already a convicted murderer and also engaged in assault and armed robbery while at large.
Biden, now 76, who had run in the 1988 campaign but dropped out after admitting plagiarism, was speaking at the Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson University in South Carolina, named after the segregationist Republican senator who he said was “one of my closest friends” and believed in “a heterogenous, diverse society.”
The future vice president grinned as he reassured the audience of high school and college students that his status as a “Democratic crime specialist” did not mean he had defended Horton.
“When I was introduced by [the host], he said I was a Democratic crime specialist. Based on the last campaign, you didn’t think there was any one of those things did you?” Biden said. “You probably thought when he said ‘Democratic crime specialist’ that I was Willie Horton’s attorney or something like that,” cracked Biden. “But believe it or not, there are some of we Democrats who feel strongly about fighting crime.”
The quip prompted stifled laughter and a few claps from the audience.
Biden, who was nearly 16 years into his 36-year career in the Senate, had been invited to the Strom Thurmond Institute to talk about foreign policy, the Cold War, and missile defense. He also discussed his close personal and working relationship with Thurmond.
Thurmond, a vocal segregationist during the civil rights era, ran for president in 1948 under the platform of “stand[ing] for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race.” Thurmond later softened his stance on civil rights issues in the 1980s but never publicly renounced his prior support for segregation.
“I came to the United States Senate. I was a 29-year-old fellow out of the civil rights movement, a public defender, and it turns out one of my closest friends ends up being Strom Thurmond, a man whose background and interests, at the time I came, were considerably different than mine,” said Biden.
“If you had told me when I entered the United States Senate that one of the people that I’d have the closest relationship with in the Senate would be Strom Thurmond, I would have told you that you were crazy. And I suspect maybe Strom would have told you, you were crazy,” he added. “I’m not just saying Strom and I are close. Anyone who knows the Senate knows how seldom we agree on the controversial issues but how closely we work together.”
Biden said the Washington press would refer to him and Thurmond as the “marvelous marriage” and ‘the odd couple” and would often ask them how they got along.
“I get along with Strom Thurmond because I respect him,” he said. “Because Strom Thurmond believes deeply in what he does, and he is a consummate legislator. He understands that this country is made up of 240 million people, the most heterogenous diverse society in the world, and every point of view has to be accommodated. Every point of view has to be listened to. And every point of view has to have its day. Its day in court, its day in the Senate, its day in the house, its day in the administration. And that’s how he operates.”
