There They Go Again

By Janice Castro

Get out the Maalox, here comes WILLIE HORTON II. Republican pollster Bill McInturff says George Bush's 1988 attack ads will pale beside the campaign commercials both parties will air next year. The voters are mad as hell, and just about every candidate seems eager to harness that anger -- or at least deflect it to the other guy. Besides, TV ads are too expensive to waste on reasoned debate over the economy and the homeless. The bipartisan conclusion: keep it short -- and mean. Dan Quayle has appointed himself the "pit bull" of Bush's campaign. G.O.P. insiders boast that if Mario Cuomo runs, they've already located his Willie Horton: Arthur Shawcross, an upstate New York child killer who went on to murder 10 women after he was paroled.

With reporting by Sidney Urquhart