| 1982 Running Mates: John Kerry & Michael Dukakis |
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 The Boston Globe: Dukakis Has Advice to Share With Kerry
WASHINGTON - Michael S. Dukakis can see it coming. With Boston having landed the Democratic convention and with his former lieutenant governor, John F. Kerry, a potential presidential contender, it probably will not be long before Republicans trot out their favorite images of Dukakis, including the former Massachusetts governor riding in a tank and furloughing a murderer. |
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But 14 years after losing his presidential bid to George H.W. Bush, Dukakis stresses that he does not want to harm anyone's candidacy, but that he can provide advice that would help Kerry win the nomination, if not the presidency.
"Every once in a while, somebody will make a crack about `the tank,' and my standard reply is, `I never threw up over the Japanese prime minister,"' Dukakis said, referring to the time Bush got sick in Tokyo in 1992. It was the Bush campaign that had ridiculed Dukakis for riding in a tank in Michigan to deflect charges that Dukakis was soft on defense.
"Look, I lost," Dukakis said in an interview. "But the one thing I did well was win the nomination. There is where there are lessons to be learned."
Kerry, too, can see something coming, and it might be more than just some friendly advice. He is already contemplating attacks on him as a Dukakis clone or as a stereotypical Massachusetts liberal. So yesterday, in response to questions about his relationship to Dukakis, he made clear his strategy for dealing with the issue, praising Dukakis but putting considerable distance between himself and his former State House partner.
"No one should try to scare up some `Michael Dukakis' issue," said a statement Kerry issued. "It doesn't work. I am not Michael Dukakis, and Michael Dukakis is not me, and the first person who would tell you that is Michael Dukakis. I respect his public service and his integrity. |
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 "But it's my name on the ballot if I run," Kerry's statement said. "I'll run as me. I think the great lesson I learned from Mike Dukakis's campaign is fight back: Define yourself before they define you. And I'm going to do that if I run."
As if to demonstrate that he has learned that lesson, Kerry then sought to avoid the inevitable Republican charge that he is a liberal, saying that he would run on a "mainstream record of conviction."
At the same time, Kerry praised Dukakis's "top flight campaign staff" and the strategy that won Dukakis the nomination.
In 1988, Dukakis handily beat two men who might be Kerry's opponents, Al Gore and Richard Gephardt. He did it with strategies now being studied closely by Kerry, raising a huge amount of early money and establishing field operations in a carefully predetermined set of states. Already, Kerry has followed that example by hiring former Dukakis fund-raiser Robert Farmer for his Senate reelection bid and laying the groundwork for Farmer to do the same for a presidential campaign.
For Kerry, it is inevitable that his two years in the Dukakis administration will gain more notice if he runs for president. |
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 One Republican professed to have forgotten the connection. "For crying out loud, I am from Massachusetts, and I had completely forgotten about Dukakis, I had forgotten how Dukakis plays into a Kerry race," said Grover Norquist, a leading Republican activist and president of Americans for Tax Reform. "We need to go back and pull all the Dukakis files and remind people where Kerry comes from, or the only part of his history will be that he served in Vietnam and was in the Senate. We need to remind people of his Massachusetts liberal days." |
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During the 1996 race for the US Senate, William F. Weld, then governor, similarly attacked Kerry by association, saying that Kerry supported the furlough policy that led to the temporary release of convicted murderer William R. Horton Jr., better known as Willie Horton, who raped a Maryland woman after failing to return to MCI-Concord.
Kerry said yesterday that the furlough policy was adopted before he became lieutenant governor in 1982. He noted that he was elected to the Senate in 1984, two years before Horton was furloughed. Kerry also said he is opposed to parole or furlough for murderers.
Dukakis, 69, has been barely a blip on the national political scene since losing the campaign for the presidency, attending but never taking a speaking role at the subsequent quadrennial conventions and confining his public activities mostly to being vice chairman of the Amtrak board.
 "Former nominees do not speak" at the conventions, said Dukakis, who now teaches public policy at Northeastern University in Boston. "We sit. We're introduced. We are applauded. We wave. I think it is so important that the party and the nominee be headlined here. I don't think we gain much from those of us who didn't win the presidency playing any huge role. I want to win. I want to see this guy from Massachusetts do well."
Although he indicated he is proud that Boston will be the convention site, Dukakis played down the political importance of the city's selection. When Dukakis was nominated at the convention in Atlanta, many pundits speculated that the location would help him win Georgia, but he wound up losing the entire South.
His resounding defeat set the stage for two Southerners, Bill Clinton and Gore, to share the Democratic ticket and win two terms.
Dukakis, who said he talks frequently with Kerry, said he expects to have a lengthy discussion about primary strategy with his former protege. Dukakis was vague about his own role at the convention.
That's fine with some Democratic officials.
"Reaching back to our leaders in the '80s might not be what is first and foremost on voters' minds," said Michael Meehan, senior counselor to the Democratic National Committee and a former Kerry press secretary. But Meehan added, "I'm sure that all former nominees will be treated with a place of honor and respect at our convention."
Dukakis says he wonders whether his campaign effort to highlight his Greek roots may have come too soon, pointing out the current popularity of the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."
"If Nia Vardalos wanted to campaign for me," Dukakis said, referring to the actress who has turned self-deprecating Greek wit into an art form, "I wouldn't have turned her down."
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 11/20/2002. |
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