Editing Ricky Ray Rector (section)

===Role in 1992 presidential campaign===
By 1992, [[Bill Clinton]] was insisting that Democrats "should no longer feel guilty about protecting the innocent" and indicated his support of [[capital punishment]].<ref name="Hartman2015">{{cite book|last=Hartman|first=Andrew|title=A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fW__BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA121|year=2015|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-25464-7|page=121|access-date=2017-12-18|archive-date=2020-03-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200324234914/https://books.google.com/books?id=fW__BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA121|url-status=live}}</ref> To make his point, he flew home to Arkansas mid-campaign to affirm that the execution would continue as scheduled.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Soss|first1=Joe|last2=Langbein|first2=Laura|last3=Metelko|first3=Alan R.|title=Why Do White Americans Support the Death Penalty?|journal=The Journal of Politics|date=September 27, 2001|volume=65|issue=2|page=399|doi=10.1111/1468-2508.t01-2-00006|s2cid=38112237|language=en}}</ref> Some pundits considered it a turning point in that race, hardening a soft public image.<ref name="Jacobin">{{cite web |last1=Robinson |first1=Nathan J. |date=November 2016 |title=The Death of Ricky Ray Rector |url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/11/bill-clinton-rickey-rector-death-penalty-execution-crime-racism/ |access-date=14 March 2022 |website=Jacobin}}</ref> Others tend to cite the execution as an example of what they perceive to be Clinton's [[opportunism]], directly influenced by the [[Michael Dukakis presidential campaign, 1988|failed presidential campaign]] of [[Michael Dukakis]], who was labeled by [[Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]] as too soft on crime.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=O'Connor|first1=Brendon|title=Policies, Principles, and Polls: Bill Clinton's Third Way Welfare Politics 1992–1996|journal=Australian Journal of Politics & History|date=September 2002|volume=48|issue=3|page=401|doi=10.1111/1467-8497.00267|language=en|issn=1467-8497}}</ref>

Clinton's critics from the anti-capital punishment sector have seen the case of Rector as an unpleasant example of what they view as Clinton's cynical [[careerism]]. The writer [[Christopher Hitchens]], in particular, devotes much of a chapter of his book on Clinton, ''[[No One Left to Lie To]]'', to what he regards as the immorality of the then Democratic candidate's decision to condone, and take political advantage of, Rector's execution. Hitchens argues that among other actions, Clinton was attempting to deflect attention from the ongoing [[Gennifer Flowers]] sex scandal.<ref name=Hitchens>{{cite book |last=Hitchens |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hitchens|title=No One Left to Lie To |publisher=Verso Books |year=2000 |isbn=978-1859847367|title-link=No One Left to Lie To }}</ref>