Inquiry of Willie Horton Ad Ends Without FEC Reaching Judgment

Federal officials have closed an investigation of the 1988 election’s notorious Willie Horton political ad without resolving whether there was improper coordination between the Bush campaign team and the ad’s sponsors.

The Federal Election Commission split, 3 to 3, along party lines on whether to close the case, which involved a supposedly independent group called the National Security Political Action Committee and an ad that became known as a symbol of racial politics.

Such groups are permitted to spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of a candidate as long as their activities are not coordinated with the candidate’s campaign.

A limited FEC investigation found a number of phone and personal contacts between Roger Ailes, President Bush’s chief media consultant in 1988, and Larry McCarthy, a former Ailes employee who produced the Horton ad, during the time the ad was made and broadcast, according to documents released this week.

The investigators also found that Jesse Raiford was simultaneously retained by both the Bush campaign and the National Security Political Action Committee to perform production services, “giving rise to a presumption of coordination.”

But the FEC general counsel said further limited investigation would not clear up whether there was in fact coordination.

Horton, who is black, is a convicted murderer who escaped during a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison, then raped a white woman and terrorized her husband.

The ad used the Horton case as a club against the Democratic nominee, Michael S. Dukakis, who was then governor of Massachusetts.