How did Dukakis win the primaries in 1988?

[JVS]

Who competed against him and how did they not manage to beat him like GHW Bush later beat him?

[Charlie Brown]

1. Alongside Gore, Bentsen, and Gary Hart

Dukakis does not seem that bad.

[jobycom]

7. Hm, I forgot Gore. That was a crowded year.

Gore was too young, and too unknown, and focused all his strategy on winning the South on Super Tuesday. He did some nice campaigning outside the south, but not enough. I remember watching him ride the New York subways, and visit an AIDS clinic. He shook the hand of an AIDS patient to demonstrate that he knew AIDS wasn't contagious by casual contact, as many people were afraid it was at the time.

I don't remember anything about Bentsen running, I just remember him being the VP candidate and making Dan Quayle cry.

[Charlie Brown]

9. I guess Bentsen didn't run

I just remember him in the VP spot, and the "you're no Jack Kennedy" to Quayle, which is probably my favorite debate quote of all time.

[jillan]

17. ditto - One of the best political moments of all times.

esp when said to potatoe man :)

[Yupster]

35. Gore ran as the moderate to Dukakis' liberal

He made his last stand in New York with Ed Koch backing him up and traveling around campaigning with him.

I think Dukakis won because of his strategy.

Gore saved his money for a sweep on Super Tuesday.

Dukakis rather than fighting Gore just picked out two states to campaign in, Texas and Florida. Meanwhile Gore had to campaign in every southern state because Jesse Jackson was a serious threat in each. Dukakis was able to pick off his prizes and Gore did not come out of the day with any momentum. After that Dukakis swept the board as Gore had concentrated all his resources in the south.

Gore threw his last everything into New York where he had the support of Mayor Koch in the hope that he could make a stand, but after campaigning as the southern moderate, he was not able to switch so quickly to a candidiate New Yorkers would follow.

[dad]

2. I think I voted for Jesse Jackson in the primaries that time

and my roommate voted twice

[jobycom]

3. His last competitor was Jesse Jackson.

He ran against Biden, Hart, Gephardt, Bob Kerry (I think). Hart was caught in a sex scandal, Biden was caught plagerizing speeches from other politicians (many believe Dukakis exposed him), Gephardt was caught dying his eyebrows (which played into the idea that he was vain and shallow). Kerrey never caught on, though I think there was some minor scandal with him.

Jesse Jackson ran pretty strong against Dukakis, but never could catch up to him. So Dukakis was the last one standing. For a while it looked like he would beat Bush, but Lee Atwater ran a smear campaign against him, much as Rove does for Bush Jr, and Bush won.

For the record, I voted for Jackson.

[WCGreen]

4. Gore ran in that election as well...

And was considered the front runner for a while...

But his son was involved in a car accident, I believe, which caused him to withdraw...

[jobycom]

10. Gore was hyped as a contender for a while

by the media, who knew that he was banking everything on Super Tuesday, and thought he might pull it off. He did well on ST, but not well enough, so his star began to fade after that. I think his son was injured after the elections, but I'm not sure. I know Gore during the 92 convention talked about not running for president in 92 because of his son's injuries and rehab.

[CottonBear]

5. Dukakis was a very good candidate but the proto-neocons took him down.

Google the tank photo-op. The press/media reaction was a down and dirty Lee Atwater style media throw down. :(

edit: correct spelling. There were many other great Democratic candidates, the least popular (poll-wise) were far more worthy of the the office of the president than Bush1(Reagan). :(

[JVS]

8. I can't believe he was a good candidate if he lost against...

George "wimp-factor" Bush.

[CottonBear]

12. Bush1 was an extension of Reagan. Dukakis was running against Reagan

's legacy. :(

[Charlie Brown]

16. Did anyone challenge Bush for the R spot?

or was he just "annointed" by the Republican Party, the way Dole and and Jr. were.

[jobycom]

20. Bob Dole, Pat Robertson, Pierre DuPont, and maybe

Buchanan and Lamar Alexander. I'm not sure about the last two.

Dole was the frontrunner (he was younger than in 96, so more energetic), but Bush managed to beat him. Some people believe that Bush cheated in the primaries, rigging several elections through computer hacking, with John Sununu's company involved somehow.

Pat Robertson did well in caucauses because he could rally his supporters, but in primaries he never did well.

I knew a lot of people who really liked DuPont. He was the Steve Forbes type candidate.

[awoke_in_2003]

37. What?

A Bush rigging an election. Why I never :)

[jobycom]

49. He's from Texas. It's a long-standing tradition in Texas

LBJ's famous "Landslide" win for senator by 200 votes is just one example. Another is Ralph Yaborough's defeat for governor by Allan Shivers in the 56 primary. Yarborough was ahead in the polls on election day. Rumor has it that Yarborough defeated him easily, but Shivers conservative Dem machine was in control of the state, and they just fixed the numbers and declared Shivers the winner. At this time in Texas the general election was just a formality, since no Repub had a chance.

Though no proof has been found that the election was fixed, many historians believe it.

[jobycom]

15. Oh yeah, he was a strong candidate

Bush beat him by doing two things. First, he smeared Dukakis the same way Rove smeared Gore and Kerry (and Ann Richards and John McCain, etc), and two he lied his ass off about what he planned to do. He ran as a Reaganite even though he hated Reagan, and he tried very hard to always sound very tough, to overcome the wimp image. In fact, he invaded Panama primarily so he wouldn't look like a wimp, and after that boosted his image, Dems were wondering who he would invade next, much as with Jr. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, we all saw it coming. That's why to vote to go to war over Kuwait was so close--most people didn't trust Bush Daddy.

Lee Atwater got brain cancer shortly after the election, and as he was dying apologized to Dukakis for what he had done to him. He knew it was wrong, but it took his impending death to make him give a damn.

A lot of the reason Bush was elected, too, was that people wanted to continue the Reagan error, um, era, and were just looking for a chance to like HW.

Sad time. It really wasn't any better than now, people have just forgotten. In twenty years, people will have forgotten just how bad Bush is, and the Repubs will be portraying him as Harry Truman.

[rpannier]

31. I don't remember him apologising about anything related to Dukakis

I remember he apologised for the "Hooked up to a battery." comment in a South Carolina general election.

[jobycom]

He apologized to a lot of people, Dukakis included.

Wikipedia mentions it briefly. "Shortly before his death from a brain tumor he said he had converted to Catholicism and, in an act of repentance, issued a number of public and written apologies to individuals whom he had attacked during his political career, including Dukakis."

Interesting article about a bad, bad man, who, as you may know, was Rove's friend and mentor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater

[rpannier]

36. I stand corrected

Thank you

[MnFats]

19. that damn tank/helmet photo killed him. That, and the fact that

the news media were pussycats and let GHW* set the agenda every goddamn day.
i never could figure out how anybody thought the tank photo was a good idea...

[rpannier]

32. He also fielded Bernard Shaw's question really poorly.

In the end, he ran a crappy campaign down the stretch. He had an 18% lead going into the puke convention and it all evaporated in one week. He never answered any of Bush I's allegations against him. He lost primarily because he F**KED UP.
Dukakis' poor campaign is why Clinton ran a decidedly different campaign in 92.

[Yupster]

33. Then there was the

Belgian endives. That didn't help him either.

[Sinewave58]

41. The Duke did not trust the Dem. experts

The national campaign experts available to him were ignored for the most part. Dukakis listened to the advise of his "local" clan of political experts, not one of which was ever deeply involved in a national campaign. Bush was ripe for an ass-whooping and he was getting one (behind in the polls by like 15 points or so). The Dukes clan put the campaign in auto-pilot, patting each other on the back while the DNC is screaming at them to wake-up. I think it took a week or two for the 15 point lead to vanish with Bush taking the lead and never looking back.

Being from Boston, we have discussed this matter to death ever since the election. We still shake our heads when thinking about it.

[wyldwolf]

43. Dukakis did his share of Lee Atwater style tactics

His camp were the ones who "exposed" Biden's plagiarism incident.

[dsc]

44. How is that an Atwater tactic

Biden, on tape, plagiarized. All the Dukakis campaign did was mail the tape to reporters. They didn't accuse Biden of something he didn't do, nor did they trick Biden into doing it.

[bluestateguy]

6. He benefited from the primary calendar and structure

1988 was the year that Super Tuesday was unveiled, which at that time was concentrated mostly in Southern states. The intent was to produce a Bill Clinton DLC style candidate, which it did, in 1992. Gebhart was the Iowa caucus, and Dukakis won the NH primary as was expected. But Dukakis emerged from Super Tuesday still in good shape because the other candidates split the votes. As I remember, Gore won Tennessee and Oklahoma, Jesse Jackson won South Carolina (blacks voted almost unanimously for him, and whites split their votes among everybody else), while Dukakis won in Texas and Florida by building a coalition of moderate white Democrats, blacks and Hispanics. Gore's campaign ran out of money and steam (the party establishment was cool to Gore at the time), Gebhart had little support outside of the midwest, and the party establishment was not about to get behind Jackson.

[rpannier]

38. Gore was also having trouble raising money

over the recording industry lyrics flap in 84.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. Don't you remember the campaign?

The Press built Dukakis up for the primaries.

Once he won, the Press tore him down with even more vigor.

It wasn't the first election where the Press decided that the Republican would win. Dukakis couldn't have won that election unless Poppy Bush had been caught buggering an orphan bound in duct tape. Carter, before Dukakis, got the same treatment; as did Mondale.

Remember Mondale?

And, I see, once again, the "We Suck!" brigade has arrived, to make sure that Gore "gets his".

That's how we lose. A lapdog press, plus lefty self-destruction. And the GOP has been riding that gravy train to the bank for decades.

--p!

[JVS]

13. I remember those men only vaguely. I was in grade school

[CottonBear]

22. JVS: study the history of the Reagan/Bush1 years and Lee Atwater's role

in the take down of the Democratic candidate. Atwater, on his deathbed (brain tumor at an early age) apologized for his dirty politics.
KKKarl is Atwater's evil progeny. :(

edit: sp.

[jillan]

18. That campaign was the dress rehearsal to what we witnessed in '04

Think about it - it was a total smear campaign against Dukakis.
Just a notch above what they did to Kerry.

Help me remember - Dukakis didn't fight back as hard as he should have. did he?
interesting.

[jobycom]

23. Not just 94, they did it to Gore in 00, to Clinton in 92, to Ann Richards

in 94 in Texas. It's the typical Bush strategy. Bush Daddy did it in 70 against Senator Yarborough. He tried to do it in 80 against Reagan, but it failed.

W did it to Ann Richards in Texas, and to McCain during the primaries. They are starting in on Hillary.

You don't really believe that Gore was actually a liar, do you? Every slander that hurled at him was false, and the media knnew it, and yet they repeated them over and over: inventing the Internet, inspiring Love Story, discovering Love Canal... all smears, none of the stories true. They are doing the same thing to Hillary now, and many Dems, sadly, are falling for it. They are very good at it.

[jillan]

24. I don't remember them really getting to Gore

Until after the election, of course.
But about the campaign. It all was stupid stuff, nothing major
like what they did to the rest. I guess they didn't have anything
to pin on Al.

Well Rove definitely had it down to perfection last year.
It was like his grand finale'. Now lets throw his sorry ass in jail.

[jobycom]

26. With Gore they convinced everyone he was a liar

that he suffered from delusions of grandeur. Going into the Democratic convention, polls showed that most people thought Gore was delusional, so they supported Bush. After Gore's strong convention, he pulled ahead in the polls until the debates. The night after his first debate against Bush, all the media proclaimed him the winner. Polls showed that Gore was perceived the winner by 2-1. Even the majority of the Republicans believed Gore had won.

The next day BushCo, led by Karen Hughes, found someone to claim that Gore had lied during the debate. Gore told the story of Kailey Ellis, a Florida student whose father, Gore said, had told him she had to stand during her science lab because the school was underfunded. The principal of her school was a Repub, and swore at a press conference that the story wasn't true, that Gore had made it up. Hughes went on the air and said "Gore is at it again, fabricating stories out of whole cloth." All of the Repub operatives spread the same message, the media picked it up and repeated it over and over and talked about it on the following Sunday, until everyone knew that Gore had once again proven himself to be a serial liar.

Of course, the story was quickly proven true. Kailey Ellis's father came forward and said he had told Gore the story, and the school district superintendent came forward and said that the chemistry lab had been too full at the beginning of the school year and Kailey had to stand, although they eventually worked the problem out. The media barely covered the new story, and kept repeating the old one long after it was proven false. Meanwhile they came up with the whole "Gore sighed too loudly so people thought he lost the debates"--completely against what every poll said. W's mom made some wisecrack about wanting to spank Gore for doing that to her son, and all the same pudits repeated the Bush message until people became convinced Gore had lost the debate by sighing, even though all the polls had shown he won the debate right after the debate. Gore went from leading by double digits to trailing by double digits in a couple of days, all because of the smears, constantly repeated by the PR department of the Republican Party--in other words, the media.

[Smarmie Doofus]

42. Point of info... correct me if I'm wrong:

Bush senior ran against to lost to... Bentsen in '70, not Yarborough. I believe Yarborough was defeated in a primary by a conservative DEM ( possibly also Bentsen) or by Tower.

Otherwise your post is spot on.

[jobycom]

46. Not wrong

In 1970, Senator Yarborough was defeated by Lloyd Bentsen in the Democratic primaries, and Bentsen defeated Bush in the general. Going in to the primaries, polls showed Yarborough with a strong lead, and all pundits believed Yarborough's only real challenge was beating Bush in the general. Bush was well financed and had run against Yarborough before, so he knew the ropes.

Bentsen ran a series of slanderous commercials against Yarborough in the final month of the campaign that played into people's concern about Yarborough as too "anti-Southern" and too liberal, and Yarborough lost. Bentsen's camp reported that he had spent less than half a million on the commercials, but experts believed he had spent over a million. Yarborough seemed to believe that Bush had helped with the commercials, since they mostly trashed Yarborough, and did not overtly support Bentsen.

Bush also convinced Republican voters to vote in the Democratic primary for Bentsen, and that seems to have happened. Many Republicans claimed that's how they defeated Yarborough, anyway. I knew Repubs even in the late 80s who repeated that story.

I'm convinced Bush was partially behind the tactics Bentsen used, but I may overstate it. That was still a sore spot for Yarborough up until his death, and Yarborough's supporters hated the conservative side of the Democratic Party. At Yarborough's funeral at the Texas State Cemetary, a man walked up to me and asked where Connally's grave was. I pointed up the hill at a large black obelisk. The man looked from it to Yarborough's grave, shook his head and said "That's too close."

[newblewtoo]

50. They took out Dean in Iowa and NH

In NH the primary is open and numerous 'independents' pulled for the 'weakest' Democratic candidate they could find. They always do that.

[jobycom]

52. Dean took himself out

Nice guy, lousy campaigner. Anyway, I know he's a god here, but a lot of non-DU Dems never warmed to him. Kerry won because long-time Democrats knew him and trusted his record. I was president of a large Dem club, very liberal, at the time, and most people had not committed before Iowa. We met just before Iowa, and I polled everyone privately. There were a few Dean supporters, but most people said they were leaning towards Dean reluctantly because the party seemed to be pushing Dean. Every one of them said they'd prefer Kerry. It was like a depression everyone was in, feeling they had to vote for this guy no one fully trusted. After Kerry won, everyone was excited about it, and Kerry easily won the endorsement.

I know that's a very different response than what you'd find here, but these were long-time liberal activists, with the average age in the fifties, probably, or maybe late forties. Dean never seemed like someone who could win to them. And this was definitely a group that sought the most liberal candidate. Every endorsement was for the liberal against the mainstream Dem. And they endorsed Kerry. I remember counting the votes, and when one person cast their vote for Wesley Clark, the group called him a Republican.

[Zen Democrat]

27. And Bob Shrum was running both campaigns.

[rpannier]

34. Dukakis didn't fight back at all...

I voted in that election and to be honest, Dukakis ran a piss-poor campaign. He had an 18% lead in the polls going into the Republican Convention and the lead evaporated in one week. Bush-I came out 2% ahead. From that time on he seemed to run a campaign that was in disarray.
He ran on his Massachussetts Miracle -- the improving economy in MA. But, he had done that with a lot of federal money. Reagan was president, the federal money dried up, the economy in MA slipped.
He never addressed any of Bush-I's allegations -- that hurt him too.
His campaign ad in the tank looked pathetically desperate.
The killer was when Bernard Shaw asked him about the death penalty during the debate and he gave such a sterile, unfeeling answer, I was turned off by it.

The '88 General Election Campaign sucked -- Except for Lloyd's verbal slapping around of Quayle.

[jobycom]

21. Where do you see an attack on Gore, or the "We Suck" brigade?

[punpirate]

28. Well, let's not forget...

... Atwater's use of Willie Horton. The tank pictures did Dukakis no good, but, the right wing did their best to attack the women around Dukakis, as usual, with the help of the press. Kitty Dukakis was the subject of whispering campaigns that she was alcoholic and mentally ill, and Olympia Dukakis was portrayed as just another Hollywood limousine liberal.

It was one of the dirtiest campaigns in modern history, thanks to Lee Atwater--and to the head of the BFEE, George H.W. Bush, who let Atwater do whatever he wanted, so long as Bush won.

[flordehinojos]

39. the way i remember is similar but with some variations, for instance,

i do remember that dukakis was ahead of bush by about 18 points in the summer--then dukakis decided to take a vacation of about (two?) weeks; then poppy bush's campaign came up with the idea of tear him down--whatever the means--and had this masterminded by the evil and corrupted mind of lee attwatter (who, shortly before he died from cancer following the campaign,said on his death bed, that what he had done for the bushes was wrong!). they smeared dukakis with whatever mud, slime, spit and lie thing they could throw at him, they ridiculed him and they saturated the media with those political ads.

dukakis would not fire back at the bush campaign. by the time he got back into campaigning mode he had lost a lot of ground (points) and bush had overtaken him, or was overtaking him at the polls.

(i remember calling the dukakis campaing twice and telling them that i could not understand how the people couldn't see that the whole thing was like two little boys out at the beach; one little boy's sand castle was much better than the other little boy, and that other little boy was so jealous that he just had to tear down the first little boy's castle by kicking it down.

the afternoon of that second call, the dukakis campaign came out with their "fear and smear" campaign slogan to explain what bush was doing. dukakis gained back lots of the points he had lost during his summer vacation but then the second Tuesday in November came around and he had not gained back enough points. Had the elections taken place the third or fourth tuesday in November, I believe dukakis would have won the elections.

poppy bush being the slime ball and shit bucket that he is knew that he could not win an election fair and square. he resorted to all sorts of hoodlum tacticts--just like he did in the 1980 campaign against carter (iran/contra); just as he repeated against clinton gore in 1992 (he told the clintons not to run--he told them through a spokesperson--and he told them that if would give them a free pass if they ran in 1996 but not in 1992 against him--the clintons evidently answered by saying:this is america, we are running. then he gave them hell to pay, through lies, smears, press buy outs like brit hume playing tennis with poppy bush at the white house tennis courts etc.

he repeated all of this and more when chimpy mcfart ran in 2000 against gore--and he made sure that his son was installed illicitly in the oval office. this time he relied, not only on more shit bucket stuff,he added some strong arm police state tactics in jeb's florida (aaaghh),and he knew scalia and a few others at the supreme court would sit his son at the oval office.he taught chimpy mcfart so well that he even surpasses poppy as a slime ball-shit bucket self.

the bushes three know that they cannot win any elections fair and square... so they resort to all of these sorts of "throw the shit bucket at them" tactics and more recently they even support them with the strong arm of police state tactics.

they are so sick, they live only when they can have power and control, that i doubt chimpy mcfart will ever let go of the oval office when his time comes...and we will see what jeb does later on this year about leaving the florida governorship.

we will see what next attack of this country they plan, where it will come, and how they will say that neither one of them can let got of their respective offices because the country need them to keep us free from whatever they themselves have dredged or drummed up... or they will send cheney off into oblivion after jeb leaves office, say chimpy mcfart cannot let go of the oval office because he is our only shield against terrorists, and appoint jeb as his vice-president.

we are in for a long the bushes have the reins period...

we have been taken over by a gang of ruffians, they won't let go of their castle: the oval office and therefore the rest of america...and from what i've been reading in the press and hearing in the broadcast media the rest of the world as well.

[RoyGBiv]

14. Difficult primary ...

Gary Hart was the odds-on favorite and probably would have won the nomination had the stories about his sex life not been revealed and belabored to such an extend. There were those at the time who saw similarities with what was taking place with Hart and what had taken place with various Democratic candidates in the '68 nomination process, i.e. a lot of crap stirred up among Democratic candidates that resulted in one of the least desirable candidates getting the nomination. As we know, Nixon and his merry tricksters had a lot to do with that. Whether Bush had a hand in the '88 Democratic primary has not been clearly revealed, but the suspicion is there.

Of course the story is much longer than that. In summary, by the end of the campaign, Dukakis supposedly represented the establishment of the Democratic Party and Jackson emerged as its conscience, which created a situation similar to the one in 1980 when Kennedy stood up for more liberal Democratic ideals against the centrist candidate. It split the party to an extent, which really only meant that the rank and file were un-enthused about the candidate, and a lot of questions that had arisen during the primary campaign were simply cast aside. Even with that, Dukakis held a commanding lead in the polls for a time. Then he started doing a lot of really stupid shit at the same time he was being subjected a vicious and racist smear campaign orchestrated by Republican henchmen, some of whom would later be instrumental in the election of Bush II.

[firefox]

25. Had a famous stupid picture in a tank.

Then there was a soft on crime campaign when someone named Horton got out of jail on parole and killed somebody. They tore him up with "soft on crime"- http://tinyurl.com/89wq8

They made Dukakis look like a fool with the tank pictures- http://tinyurl.com/b7lby

[punpirate]

30. The truly ironic thing about those pictures...

... is that, as I recall, Dukakis was a tank sergeant in Korea in the `50s. He himself was hot to get into the tank commander's seat out of nostalgia. But, frankly, the helmet made him look like Alfred E. Newman. But, ultimately, it was not the picture that sank him--it was Atwater's dirty tricks.

[jobycom]

53. I agree. Willie Horton hurt him more than the tank. nt.

[Zen Democrat]

29. Here's the list of Democratic candidates for president in 1988:

Bruce E. Babbitt, former governor from Arizona
Joseph R. Biden Jr., U.S. senator from Delaware
Michael S. Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts
Richard A. "Dick" Gephardt, U.S. representative from Missouri
Albert A. Gore Jr., U.S. senator from Tennessee
Gary W. Hart, former U.S. senator from Colorado
the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, civil rights activist
Paul M. Simon, U.S. senator from Illinois

[Aaaargh]

51. The Repig-friendly media ho's tagged them 'The Seven Dwarfs'

which means one of the 8 was eliminated or came in late. Of course, Hart bowed out when the media went after him over his affair with Donna Rice.

I think there are a couple aspects of the '88 Democratic race which proved to be particularly significant as time went on, and still resonate today.

For one thing, Hart was literally blackmailed by the Washington Post into leaving the race. That paper had gathered evidence that he had not only had a recent affair with party girl Donna, but with another woman from DC. Senior WP editors confronted Hart with this info and offered not to print it IF he left the race. However foolish Hart was to conduct himself this way when he's running for president, there should have been outrage over the fact that the media had blackmailed a popular presidential candidate into withdrawing from the race, by offering to WITHHOLD news material from the public. This is about being bigtime political players rather than journalists, and it presaged the corporate media's attempts, in cooperation with the Repigs, to topple President Clinton in the '90's.

When Hart briefly returned to the race at a fairly late stage in the primaries, the media had a hissy fit that he would dare to defy them. I recall a Newsweek or Time article that sneered at Hart's wife for having so little shame as to campaign with him: "Does she want to be First Lady THAT badly?"

Another thing is that '88 was the first year that there was a 'Super Tuesday' primary date, dominated that year by Southern states. This was fostered in part by the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in their early days, in hopes of producing a moderate Southern candidate. Al Gore was the pick for this, though he was a pretty young guy still, and was, I believe, still in his first term in the Senate. However, Gore didn't go over that well, and to the dismay of the strategists who'd put it together, Jesse Jackson trumped Super Tuesday. It's worth noting that the DLC's agenda at that stage was quite different from the extreme corporatist program they've since adopted, which explains in part why Al Gore has so decisively distanced himself from them and their activities in recent years.

Dukakis's choice of a running mate didn't sit well with a lot of Democrats, as Lloyd Bentsen at that point was known to be a prime 'boll weevil' as the term was used then, who had voted with the Reagan administration and Repigs on key measures. It also didn't help much in the South.

Dukakis's campaign became so sloppy after his strong performance at the Convention, that it seemed as though his ambition had been to be NOMINATED for president, and he didn't much care about being elected. On the other hand, Bush ran a sleazy campaign, in which he baited Dukakis for having advocated and/or signed a law in MA exempting students from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. This was actually done in respect to the Jehovah's Witnesses, whose strictures require them to decline to take oaths, or whatever. From there, Bush started doing photo-ops at flag-making factories and stuff like that.

Bush's pick of Quayle as running mate appalled a lot of people on every side once they'd gotten a look at him. It's been said by some that airheaded Danny Boy reminded Poppy of his own eldest son, then known as George Jr. I think it was in the re-election campaign in '92 that they made Jr. the liaison with religious right groups...

[peace frog]

40. From the Wikipedia link above, I found this

In a February 1991 article for Life Magazine, Atwater wrote:

My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring -- acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.

This from a man who took pleasure in eviscerating his opponents, it's a heartfelt statement full of regret. Pity for all of us that Atwater's deathbed revelations of humanity had no apparent effect on his proteges Rove and Jr.

[jobycom]

47. Yes, W and Rove emulate Atwater, but only before Atwater's death.

A lot of people who look fondly back at HW or Reagan in comparison to W have short memories. Neither of the older men was much better than W, and I believe Reagan was worse. The big difference now is that Bush controls Congress. If he'd had to deal with a Democratic Congress, he wouldn't have been able to do so much.

[Lefty48197]

45. GHWB ran the sleaziest campaign in American history

The foundation for all the lies, slander, distortions, and various other bullshit that is common-place in modern Republican campaigns was laid by GHWB and his campaign manager, James Baker during the '88 campaign. That campaign is now the blueprint for Republican lies today.

[Armstead]

48. The Massachusetts Miracle

Dukakis stepped into a cruddy situation in Massachusetts as governor. The state's economy improved greatly (by conventional measurements) during his term, and he did promote some innivative approaches.

That created a buzz, and Dukakis ssemed to many like a viable, reasonable alternative to Reaganomics.

But he turned out to have the charisma of a turnip as a presidential candidate, and he allow the GOP to tar his image.

Frankly there is a cautiionary message about jumping the gun and believing good competant governors aumomatically make good presidential candidates.

[Hippo_Tron]

54. Dukakis had a 17 point lead over Bush after the Democratic Convention

At the time, Reagan's approval ratings were some of the lowest during his term and the Iran Contra scandal was a serious problem. George Bush was also not nearly as much of an attractive politician as Ronald Reagan was. It appeared as though the "Reagan Democrats" were supporting Dukakis in large numbers.

Then Bush hired Lee Atwater to ruin Dukakis. The Willie Horton ad very well resonated with white Americans who had a fear of black criminals. The ad also played on the death penalty issue, basically implying that if George Bush were in charge, Willie Horton would have been executed for his crimes and not have been alive to commit those murders. There were other ads, the tank ad for example, but the Willie Horton ad was really what did Dukakis in.

Dukakis also failed to respond and to go negative against Bush until it was too late. He also completely fumbled the question in the debates about whether he would want the death penalty if his wife were ever murdered.

The reason that the Clinton campaign was so successful was that they looked very carefully at all of the tactics that Bush used against Dukakis and came up with ways to defeat them.