Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story

The film is a fascinating look at a man who profoundly changed the tenor of modern political campaigns.

Stefan Forbes does an excellent job of charting Lee Atwater's political life, and you get enough of the personal to get a sense of the complexities of the man. As you hear stories told by people who are still very active in politics today—Ed Rollins, Terry McAuliffe and Tucker Eskew —it's easy to make a connection between Atwater's political legacy and current election dramas . . . It's something to see Tucker Eskew speak with such glowing admiration of Lee Atwater knowing that he was recently hired by the McCain campaign!!!

I really enjoyed the film—found it entertaining and enlightening.

American politics at it's most revealing, in "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story", illuminating the most destructive forces at work in American politics over the last thirty years.

The media, candidates, personal friends and colleagues reveal a deeply troubled man, seeking power at all costs. Lee Atwater is a real bully in every sense of the word, using his somewhat smarmy southern charm to both make himself look like "every man", as well as, the candidates he represents.

At one point, the conservative political strategist, Mary Matalin defends Atwater as "brilliant" and appears sentimental about her colleague and his unethical approaches to politics. In every clip, quote and historical reference Lee Atwater appears to be the Devil himself. The scariest part of this film, is seeing Rove groomed to be Atwater's successor.

Rove can attribute every one of his devious political strategies to the mastermind evil genius of Lee Atwater. This film portrays the average American as a sentimentalist, carefully "played" at our most basic fears and prejudice.

Watch this film and share it with others, to awaken your consciousness to what is truthful and real in the dirty world of American politics. What you hear in the next campaign slogan, should be considered carefully, as a probable misrepresentation of the truth.

I expected this documentary to lean left. I expected it to show all of Lee Atwater's warts. I expected it to shine a harsh light on the dirty campaign tactics that define modern politics. However, I wasn't prepared for the severe leftward tilt of its content. Goodness, if only we had known how angelic Michael Dukakis was, we wouldn't have elected him president, we would have proclaimed him pope! Viewing this film it becomes obvious that his political views and poor campaign had absolutely nothing to do with his landslide defeat. It was all because of that awful man from South Carolina and the millions of sheep who were tricked into voting for the vice president! It's a shame there couldn't have been more balance instead of a litany of complaints from defeated opponents and a condemnation of many of the same tactics used by Democrats. I would have preferred a more rounded look at the man and of politics in general, where both sides have committed their share of bashing, scheming and pandering.

OK – bias declaration time here because this film is, by covering the material really well, a tad critical of the Republican party, so it helps if readers know at least where I approached it from. I am generally liberal but in the case of partisan films I will try and put that to one side, hence I can agree with Michael Moore's points but yet also see the massive flaws in many of his films. I say this because I enjoyed this film a great deal, finding it fascinating and am assuming that anyone who disliked the film will assume that I have simply toed the party line whether it was any good or not. I can assure you I have not!

I came to this film on BBC4 in the UK (where it was called "Dirty Tricks: The Man Who Got the Bushes Elected") because I, like many, have an interest in how American politics operate. Fear seems to play a big part, as does the exaggeration of the importance of patriotism and patriotic symbols and it amazes me how it appears to work to convince people to apparently vote against their own interests because the Republican party is, like the UK conservative party, the party of the wealthy and the party of the rich. OK that is a sweeping generalisation that is not as true as it was (all major parties are the parties of the rich!) but it has some merit. This can be seen in the most recent elections where Obama is attacked as being elitist due to his education, while Bush is painted as a "good ol' boy" despite his massive wealth and Harvard education. Or how such a fuss was made over Obama's flag pin or not having his hand on his heart etc. To be blunt it can be seen how there was a constant suggestion about Obama's religion – which backfired wonderfully as McCain found his voters making racist statements ("he's an Arab") – like a monster that you have raised that suddenly turns on you.

I wasn't initially interested in this as a subject though because I cynically assumed that things were always like this and didn't think that this approach would have had a founding father or a development. However what this film does that is so fascinating is the way it tells the story of the rise of Lee Atwater as an adviser to the Bush campaign and the tactics that brought him and his party success in the elections in such a clear way that you can see where his actions have led us. This allows the film to engage for those of us who have never heard of Atwell, because his relevance is obvious. To me I found the bigger picture to be much more interest than the man himself and as a result the film is less engaging at the start and end when it focuses on him as more of a man. Where it really is at its best is in the middle section where we are shown the approach of putting fear and patriotism onto the agenda and making them weapons to be used against Dukakis and in particular the racial element and the way that a rapist was essentially made his "running mate". It is here where you can see the damage and the sheer cruelty and deception of his game and it helps that Dukakis presents himself well because we feel much more sympathy for his failed campaign.

Although the title suggests that this is about Lee Atwell himself, it is a much more effective look at the birth of a destructive but effective political approach that the Republican party continue to use and indeed the Democrats themselves have picked up, perhaps having learnt that fighting fire with fire is the only way ahead. The film remains focused on its subject and, while I would have liked another thirty minutes that follows the path that Rove and others continued down, it does still work as an effective look at the subject that allows the viewers to follow that path themselves.

I couldn't sleep one night and this documentary was on CBC Newsworld. The political career of Lee Atwater and how he helped Ronald Reagan and George Bush get to the White House is sobering stuff.

Atwater was a master at spin. He would use every dirty trick in the book to make the GOP's opponents in the elections look bad. Unscrupulous, underhanded, ruthless and unrelenting, he would do everything he could to undermine the opposition. He even would attack his own, such as Bob Dole. He would use the power of fear to get people to vote for the Republicans.

Despite all this, he still comes off as a charismatic, very likable, affable and cool guy. His love of blues music and the guitar just make you want to forgive him for his evil ways. He comes off as a true charismatic enigma.

A very interesting look at how the political machine worked in the 1980's and how easy it is to control people with words and images, Boogie Man is definitely worth a watch to see how Atwater manipulated the American people to see things his way.