In the race to the White House, a Massachusetts liberal is
battling a Bush in close, heated battle.
Sound familiar?
Well, it does to Michael Dukakis.
The former Massachusetts governor and sometime UCLA public
policy professor was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988
when a series of personal attacks from the elder Bush camp
contributed to Dukakis losing both a double-digit lead in the polls
and ultimately the election.
But Dukakis believes the mistakes he made when he refused to
fight back can serve as lessons for the current democratic
presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who was also the
lieutenant governor under Dukakis in the early 1980s.
Dukakis later transitioned into teaching. He now splits his time
between Northeastern University in Boston and UCLA, teaching
year-round and always traveling with his wife, Kitty.
Though more or less out of the public eye these days, opting to
spend more time with students than politicians, Dukakis still has
strong and clear opinions on the state of politics today ““
opinions he is not afraid to share.
In a recent telephone interview from Boston, Dukakis expounded
on Kerry and the election, saving his harshest words for the
current presidential administration.
…
Daily Bruin: How are you doing?
Michael Dukakis: How am I doing? I’ll tell you on the
first Tuesday in November.
DB: What have you been up to this summer?
MD: Well, I teach right through the year. So, I leave (UCLA) at
the end of the winter quarter, I come back (to Boston) the first of
May. … So, I am now into the fall semester, which will run until
the 20th of December and then Kitty and I will wrap things up here.
We’ll fly out there and we’ll see you guys early
January.
DB: So how closely are you following the election?
MD: Look, this guy was my lieutenant governor ““ I’m
more than following it. I’m doing everything I can ““
like a lot of other people ““ to get him elected.
DB: How well do you really know John Kerry?
MD: Well, as well as anybody I’ve worked with. I mean
I’ve known him for years and years and years. He was my
lieutenant governor for two years ““ we had a terrific
relationship. He was a great lieutenant governor; we worked very
closely together ““ and he’s been my U.S. senator for
20. So, I know him well personally and professionally.
DB: What do you think are the most important issues in this
election?
MD: Well, you’ve got to understand where I’m coming
from. This is the worst national administration I’ve ever
lived under, bar none, and I’ve just celebrated my 70th
birthday. It’s reckless abroad and it has no conception of
what it takes to build a strong America here at home. The gap
between the wealthy and the rest of us is widening, our
infrastructure is falling apart, we’ve got 45 million people
in this country without health insurance, we’ve got a minimum
wage that’s a joke. We haven’t even been able to put
the kind of resources that Bush committed himself to putting into
the No Child Left Behind bill in that bill. This is an
administration that is anti-environment. I could go on and on.
And I’m the last guy in the world to tell you how to win
the presidential election given what happened to me in 1988, but I
thought we had a terrific eight years under (former President Bill)
Clinton and (former Vice President Al) Gore and I want to get back
to that.
DB: So, why didn’t you win the election in
1988?
MD: Because I made a basic decision that I was not going to
respond to the Bush attack campaign and this is the way these
people operate and it was a terrible mistake. I mean it’s
clear from my experience that you can’t do that.
People are going to come at you. I mean this Swift Boat story is
utterly baseless, has been shot down 150 times, is resurrected
again, the national media take the bait, they start running the ad,
and you have to deal with it. And, you know, this is utter
nonsense. And yet these things obviously have an impact.
There’s a pattern here ““ I mean they did it to John
McCain in South Carolina in the year 2000. This is a guy who spent
six years of his life in a cage in North Vietnam. They did it to
Max Cleland in 2002 ““ a guy that came back from Vietnam
without two legs and one arm and (the Republicans) ran a
(candidate) with a bad knee against him and beat him, arguing that
(Cleland) wasn’t sufficiently committed to national security
and now they’re trying to do it to Kerry. And the technique
is the same: You organize a phony independent committee, claim
you’ve had nothing to do with it ““ which is simply not
believable ““ and try to cut the other guy up.
And given the source of the attacks and the military records of
the people that are attacking ““ or should we say the
non-military records ““ it’s, I think, particularly
despicable. But, you have to deal with it.
DB: So what do you think about Kerry’s response to the
Swift Boat ads?
MD: Well, I think he’s done exactly what you have to do.
First, you get people out that were actually there, unlike any of
these folks ““ some of whom, by the way, were involved in the
attacks on McCain in South Carolina ““ so this isn’t the
first time we’ve heard from these folks. And then, if
necessary, you’ve got to get up and call a spade a spade,
which is what he did. But there’s no question that these
attacks have an impact. …
DB: Now, after the Republican National Convention and the
bounce for Bush, Kerry’s campaign seems to be stalling. What
do you think he needs to do to turn things around?
MD: Well, I think, look, the debates are going to be important,
we have seven weeks to go. Kerry has always been one of the best
closers in the business and in an interesting kind of way,
he’s a better candidate when he’s behind than when
he’s ahead. We saw that in the primary. I think we’re
going to see it again. But this is a critically important election,
there’s no question about it.
DB: Based on what you’ve seen, how does George W. Bush
compare with his father as an election opponent?
MD: Well, given what happened to me … I mean, look, it’s
basically the same people that run the campaign ““ the same
technique. (Bush’s senior adviser Karl) Rove learned his
stuff from (Lee) Atwater, who was the guy who was responsible for
the elder Bush’s campaign and who was nice enough to
apologize to me before he died ““ about the campaign. But
that’s the way these people play the game and you just have
to be ready for it and you have to do everything you can to deal
with it. It’s not easy, it’s not easy. It’s one
thing if there was any truth to this stuff but it’s very
difficult to cope with charges that are utterly baseless.
DB: So who do you think will win this election?
MD: I think John’s going to win it, but nobody ever said
it was going to be easy.
DB: What’s something that you know about John Kerry
that America doesn’t?
MD: Well, the most ridiculous charge is that Kerry flips and
flops on issues. I mean the biggest flip-flopper in American
politics today is the guy in the Oval Office. I mean, I think
he’s done it three times in the last week. First it was (the
expiration of the) assault weapons (ban), then it was the 9/11
commission, then it was something else ““ you know, we
can’t win the war on terrorism, we can win the war on
terrorism. He fought campaign finance reform, now all of the sudden
he’s for campaign finance reform. You know, I could go on and
on.
I mean, John’s a very strong guy, he’s been an
excellent United States senator, he’s had as consistent a
record as anybody I know and, you know, he’s been really
outstanding on some issues. He and John McCain basically, finally
brought peace to our relationship with Vietnam. He’s probably
the top guy in Congress on environmental issues. I could go on and
on. He’s been a first-rate senator and he’d be a damn
good president.