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American political consultant and strategist

Harvey LeRoy "Lee" Atwater (February 27, 1951 – March 29, 1991) was an American political consultant and strategist for the Republican Party. He was an adviser to Republican U. S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and chairman of the Republican National Committee. Atwater aroused controversy through his aggressive campaign tactics, especially the Southern strategy.

Atwater was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Alma "Toddy" (Page), a school teacher, and Harvey Dillard Atwater, an insurance adjustor. He had two siblings, Ann and Joe, and grew up in Aiken, South Carolina. 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. As a teenager in Columbia, South Carolina, Atwater played guitar in a rock band, The Upsetters Revue. Even at the height of his political power, he would often play concerts in clubs and church basements, solo or with B. B. King, in the Washington, D. C., area. He released an album called Red Hot & Blue on Curb Records, featuring Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Sam Moore, Chuck Jackson, and King. During the 1960s, Atwater briefly played backup guitar for Percy Sledge. Atwater attended A. C. Flora High School. In 1973, Atwater graduated from Newberry College, a small private Lutheran institution in Newberry, South Carolina, where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. At Newberry, Atwater served as the governor of the South Carolina Student Legislature. He earned a Master of Arts degree in communications from the University of South Carolina in 1977. 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. At a press briefing, Atwater planted a fake reporter who rose and said, "We understand that Turnipseed has had psychiatric treatment". Atwater later told reporters off the record that Turnipseed "got hooked up to jumper cables", referring to electroconvulsive therapy that Turnipseed underwent as a teenager. Spence went on to win the race. After the 1980 election, Atwater went to Washington and became an aide in the Ronald Reagan administration, working under political director Ed Rollins. In 1984, Rollins managed Reagan's re election campaign, and Atwater became the campaign's deputy director and political director. Rollins mentioned Atwater's work several times in his 1996 book Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms. He stated that Atwater ran a dirty tricks operation against Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, including publicizing the fact that Ferraro's parents had been indicted for numbers running in the 1940s. Rollins described Atwater as "ruthless", "Ollie North in civilian clothes", and someone who "just had to drive in one more stake". The day after the 1984 presidential election, Atwater became a senior partner at the political consulting firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly. During his years in Washington, Atwater became aligned with Vice President George H. W. Bush, who chose Atwater to manage his 1988 presidential campaign.

Atwater's most noteworthy campaign was the 1988 presidential election, when he served as campaign manager for Republican nominee George H. W. Bush. 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. 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. Horton then became the centerpiece of Atwater's ad campaign against Dukakis. The issue of furlough for first degree murderers was originally brought up by Democratic candidate Al Gore, during a presidential primary debate. However, Gore never referred specifically to Horton. Dukakis had tried to portray himself as a moderate politician from the liberal state of Massachusetts. The Horton ad campaign only reinforced the public's general opinion that Dukakis was too liberal, which helped Bush overcome Dukakis' 17 percent lead in early public opinion polls, and win both the electoral and popular vote by landslide margins. Although Atwater clearly approved of the use of the Willie Horton issue, the Bush campaign never ran any commercial with Horton's picture, running a similar but generic ad instead. 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". In her memoir, Barbara Bush said Atwater and the younger Bush (whom Atwater called "Junior") became "great friends."

After the election, Atwater was named chairman of the Republican National Committee. Shortly after Atwater took over the RNC, Jim Wright, a Democrat, was forced to resign as Speaker of the House and was succeeded by fellow Democrat, Tom Foley. On the day that Foley officially became speaker, the RNC began circulating a memo to Republican congresspeople and state party chairpeople called "Tom Foley: Out of the Liberal Closet". The memo compared Foley's voting record with that of openly gay Congressman Barney Frank, with a subtle implication that Foley, too, was gay. It had been crafted by RNC communications director Mark Goodin and by House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich. Gingrich had already been attempting to convince several reporters to print the rumour. The memo was harshly condemned by both political parties. For instance, Republican Senate leader, Bob Dole, said in the Senate chamber, "This is not politics. This is garbage". Atwater initially defended the memo, calling it "no big deal" and "factually accurate". However, some days later, he claimed that he had not approved it. Following Bush's victory, Atwater focused on organizing a public relations campaign against Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. At the time Atwater became ill, he was supporting the bid of Representative Tommy Robinson to gain the Republican gubernatorial nomination to oppose Clinton in the fall. Robinson lost the primary to former Arkla Gas CEO Sheffield Nelson. In 1989, Atwater became a member of the historically black Howard University Board of Trustees. The university gained national attention when students rose up in protest against Atwater's appointment. Student activists disrupted Howard's 122nd anniversary celebrations and eventually occupied the university's administration building. Within days, both Atwater and Howard President, James E. Cheek, resigned. Also in 1989, Atwater strongly criticized the candidacy of David Duke for the Louisiana House of Representatives. He said: "David Duke is not a Republican as far as I am concerned He is a pretender, a charlatan, and a political opportunist who is looking for any organization he can find to legitimate his views of racial and religious bigotry and intolerance We repudiate him and his views and we are taking steps to see that he is disenfranchised from our party."

In 1988, Atwater and several friends, including Don Sundquist, founded a restaurant named Red Hot & Blue in Arlington, Virginia. The restaurant, which has since grown into a chain, served Memphis BBQ and played Memphis blues music in the dining room. Atwater recorded a 1990 album with B. B. King and others on Curb Records, titled Red Hot & Blue. The title track from the album earned Atwater a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Recording at the 33rd Annual Grammy Awards in 1991.

Atwater married Sally Dunbar (1951–2021) in 1978. They had three children, Sara Lee, Ashley Page, and Sally Theodosia. She was endorsed by former President George H. W. Bush.

On March 5, 1990, Atwater suffered a seizure during a fundraising breakfast. His acting replacement while he was ill was incompetent. In January 1991 he finally resigned from his chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.

In the months after the severity of his illness became apparent, Atwater said he had converted to Catholicism, with the aid of Fr. John Hardon. 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. So, from that standpoint, there is some truth and good in everything." In the article Atwater apologized to Michael Dukakis for the "naked cruelty" of the 1988 presidential election campaign. In the 2008 documentary, Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, Ed Rollins stated: :blockquote|[Atwater] was telling this story about how a Living Bible was what was giving him faith and I said to Mary [Matalin], "I really, sincerely hope that he found peace". She said, "Ed, when we were cleaning up his things afterwards, the Bible was still wrapped in the cellophane and had never been taken out of the package", which just told you everything there was. He was spinning right to the end.

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. Atwater's political career is the subject of the 2008 feature length documentary film Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story. Atwater appears in the second season of the 2019 alternate history web television series For All Mankind, in which he is played by Dustin Seavey. 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 McSweeney and has been performed in various venues more than a dozen times since.