ASHUA, N.H. - Willie Horton is back. And former governor Michael S. Dukakis once again is crying foul.
Twelve years after Horton became a symbol of racial politics - and a powerful weapon against Dukakis in his failed bid for the White House - Bill Bradley has accused Al Gore of bearing responsibility for first injecting Horton into the national consciousness.
Dukakis yesterday chastised Bradley for the assertion, saying the blame for Horton's emergence in the 1988 campaign continues to rest with former President Bush.
''To suggest that Al Gore was responsible for this is not only wrong but quite unfair,'' Dukakis said of Bradley's claim. ''The guy who's responsible for it was George Bush, and we all know what he did.''
Horton was a black man who committed rape while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison. During the 1988 general election, Vice President Bush ran a highly controversial attack ad against Dukakis that featured a menacing image of Horton and portrayed Dukakis as soft on crime and punishment. Civil rights leaders expressed outrage at the racially charged nature of the ads.
But Bradley told the Boston Herald in yesterday's editions that Gore bore responsibility for injecting Horton into the race.
''Gore introduced him into the lexicon,'' Bradley said. ''It bothers me a great deal. ... I wouldn't have used Willie Horton.''
''The racial dimension to that - there were probably a lot of other people who fit into that category,'' he said.
Bradley was referring to a Democratic primary debate a week before the New York primary when Gore, who was running a weak third to Dukakis and the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the race for the nomination, criticized a Massachusetts policy that permitted weekend furloughs for inmates. Gore noted that two slayings had been committed by convicted murderers on furloughs and asked Dukakis if he supported a similar furlough policy for federal inmates.
Bradley's assertion comes as he trails Gore significantly among black voters, who will play an important role in the Super Tuesday primaries in the South on March 14. Bradley also is running far behind Gore in Iowa, less than two weeks before the caucuses there, though he appears to hold a slim lead over Gore in New Hampshire.
Yesterday, Dukakis, who is a Gore supporter, and Gore officials said Gore never used Horton's name in the debate, never referred to Horton's race and never displayed a picture of Horton.
''It's a sad, sad day when Senator Bradley stoops to this kind of negative politics,'' said Chris Lehane, Gore's spokesman. ''I guess you could chalk it up to desperation.''
Bradley spokeswoman Kristen Ludecke said yesterday that even though Gore did not mention Horton's name, ''it was a code'' for the furlough controversy that was already raging in Massachusetts. Bradley's point, she said, was that Gore ''could have brought this up in a way that would not have led to the racial polarization in the general election.''
The Gore campaign even enlisted the help of the House Democratic leader, Representative Richard A. Gephardt, who was a candidate in 1988 and issued a statement yesterday on the vice president's behalf.
''Al Gore made a legitimate criticism of Governor Dukakis' position on prison furloughs without injecting race into the debate,'' said Gephardt. ''He never used Horton's name or image, and never resorted to race-baiting, neither implied nor explicit.''
Susan Estrich, Dukakis' campaign manager in 1988, said she considered Gore's role in the Horton episode far more significant than Dukakis does.
''I would never accuse Gore of being racist,'' said Estrich, who has not endorsed a candidate. ''But his reference to furloughs was certainly the first shot of the Willie Horton issue. Everyone understood Willie Horton to be the furlough issue.''
According to documents provided by the Gore campaign, Dukakis gave this response to Gore's criticism in the 1988 debate of the Bay State's furlough program: ''Al, the difference between you and me is that I have to run a criminal justice system, you never have.''
Dukakis also noted that the policy had been changed to no longer give furloughs to people serving life in prison.
''I like Bill Bradley,'' Dukakis said yesterday from his office at the University of California at Los Angeles. ''But I just hope that as we head for Iowa and New Hampshire, we will keep this campaign where it ought to be, on the important issues.''
