The name Lee Atwater may not be as well known to non-Republicans as that of Barry Goldwater, but his influence within the party ran just as deep.

By Telly Davidson, FilmStew.com

In this crucial election year, one of the films generating the most buzz at the just completed Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) was Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, directed by Stefan Forbes, who is no relation to Republican royalty Steve Forbes. Of his controversial and controversy-baiting political consultant and strategist, Forbes tells FilmStew that "Lee took over the Republican Party. He changed its image from the Eastern elite establishment - Rockefeller, Bill Buckley, Gerald Ford," and transformed it into the party of the hard-working and middle class.

Atwater was able to capitalize on his Southern roots by recognizing how race and, above all, social class influences Americans. He was also one of the first to recognize the fact that the evolution of television was changing politics into a demographics-driven, target-audience medium, with cable channels abetting a 24-7 news cycle.

"Without Lee," Forbes explains ominously, "we might not have had Reagan, or [George Herbert] Bush." He was, in the words of the documentary filmmaker, Karl Rove's Karl Rove.

"Atwater's legacy is that of a hard-knuckled inspiration for today's Republicans," Forbes muses. "It's also one of unrepentant politics-as-warfare, which looms over American politics to this day." When asked what Atwater (who died of cancer in 1991)would advise Republican standard-bearer John McCain to do today if he were still alive, Forbes laughs and says simply, "Whatever it takes to win!"

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