Part IV

Part III

Part II

Part I
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THE COLLEGE YEARS (Part 3: The Fall ‘88 Campaign or "the mean season"):

Well, not only did Dukakis fail to deflect the Liberal label but he managed to play right into Team BushÂ’s hands. Three things killed Dukakis in the minds of American voters. First, at a time when the Soviet Union was falling apart and the U.S. had just gotten to feel good about itself militarily, Dukakis got into a tank at a photo op. the video tape captured this little Greek guy, in a helmet, smiling and pointing as he rode around in this big tank. He looked like a kid with a new toy. People looked at this and thought, "This guy could be the leader of the free world?"

The next issue was the famous "Willie Horton" ad. Willie Horton was a Massachusetts convict who was let out of prison on a weekend furlough. The program was actually started by the State prior to DukakisÂ’ taking office but as the current Governor he supported it. While on this weekend pass, he raped and murdered a woman in Maryland. To the voters, Dukakis was soft on crime the image of a black convict roaming free to pillage additional innocent victims scared the living hell out of them. (On a side note, the ad originated during the primaries from Al Gore's campaign.)

But what really sealed the deal for Bush was the debates. Dukakis was asked point blank about his opposition to the death penalty. Now most people in America favor the death penalty and some even accept the fact that some of those in opposition at least have a decent argument against it. However, Bernard Shaw of CNN asked (and IÂ’m paraphrasing here), "Governor, if your wife were raped and murdered would you support the death penalty for the convicted offender?" Dukakis turned to the camera without missing a beat and said almost matter-of-factly, "No Bernie I wouldnÂ’t. And IÂ’ll tell you whyÂ…" Any chance that he had of coming from behind was destroyed in that moment. Watching the debates, even I kind of knew that it was over.

But damn it, I was going to fight anyway. There actually was a good debate moment that I enjoyed. During the Vice-Presidential debate, Texas Senator Lloyd Bentson (who beat Bush for that office eighteen years earlier) squared off against Indiana Senator Dan Quayle. Quayle was fodder for the media from the beginning. With his boyish good looks and sort of vacant look on his face all the time, he a darling of conservatives but most of the electorate looked him over and considered him a lightweight. Quayle didnÂ’t help himself too much either in that he never seemed fully prepared when quizzed by reporters. When allegations came that he joined the National Guard during Vietnam to allegedly avoid the draft, he exploded.

Anyway, here we are at the debate. Anyone who was old enough will remember because they played the bit over and over and over on the news. The moderator questioned Quayle as to whether he thought he was prepared to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Quayle composed himself and confidently that not only was he prepared experience-wise but he pointed out that John F. Kennedy was the same age when he took the oath of office. Bentson couldnÂ’t resist. On his rebuttal, he turned to Quayle and said, "Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy. I worked with Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mindÂ…(and then the zinger)Â…Senator, youÂ’re no Jack Kennedy."

It was a cheap shot, but an effective one. In fact it may have been the highlight of the campaign for me, someone whose most recent political hero was Kennedy. Other Democrats loved it as well, all the while holding a quiet indignation. Who was this meathead to compare himself to St. Jack? Sheesh. Of course, the old maxim that nobody votes for the bottom of the ticket held true and it didnÂ’t have any real effect in November.

Two more pre-election memories have stayed with me. The first goes back to an experience with one of those dorky College Republicans that I alluded to earlier. Now this guy, who was a jerk, came into our dorm room one day. WeÂ’ll call him Steve. He started shooting the breeze with us and he noticed that I had taped a black and white glossy of JFK up on the wall. Now keep in mind that neither Bob nor I really thought he had more than space between his ears anyway. But he pipes up with a comment that made us wrinkly our brows. He said that if we liked Kennedy, we should like George Bush (Sr., that is). Unfortunately for Steve, he lacked the ability to articulate exactly why but his main point was that they were quite a bit alike. As far as Bob and I were concerned, we figured he must have been drinking.

Now here’s the irony. This dope actually wasn’t far from the mark. George H.W. Bush and John F. Kennedy had a LOT in common. Both were moderates politically. Kennedy was more conservative than a lot of Democrats – certainly by current standards and Bush was more liberal the average Republican. Both were heroes of WWII. Both grew up in well-to-do families. Both were part of political dynasties. I’m ashamed to say that at the time I didn’t even know Prescott Bush, George’s father, had been a U.S. Senator from my home state of Connecticut. Both attended Yale and lived for a time in New Haven. There are other similarities but I’m rambling. It wasn’t until recently when I read Bush’s "All The Best", a collection of his letters from throughout his life, and read biographies on George W. that I learned all of this. Funny how it triggers that memory of what I thought at the time was an absurd statement.

The other memory I have is "the rally". Yes, I attended a Dukakis rally in New Haven that fall. He did a campaign swing through the Northeast – which is an indication of how badly he was doing at the point – and Bob and I headed on over to a part of downtown that was adjacent to Yale and the famous Pepe’s Pizza Place. It was both exciting and sad. It was cool being surrounded by fellow supporters, holding signs and chanting silly things. There was this old guy who tried leading the crowd in a song. The song seemed to be half a traditional Democratic ditty and half made up as he went along. At one point the old geezer was stomping his feet, clapping his hands and singing something about Michael Dukakis being the greatest man in the world. I realized then, that I was on the fringe.

The night before this rally, Bob and I decided that instead of just sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves that we should actually go out and really get involved. We went down to the local Democratic headquarters where a bunch of young volunteers were painting signs for the rally. We offered to hang signs and bumper stickers all over the city and they were happy to stuff our hands full of campaign materials. I remember most of these volunteers being really hippy-like. Tie-dyed shirts, long hair and sandals – some were even barefoot. I didn’t feel any unity with these folks and in fact I felt a little like I didn’t really belong in that hoot-n-nanny. I think I saw a lot of these same people years later when my wife and I would go to the Ben & Jerry's Newport Folk Festival. Nevertheless, we stuck stickers everywhere, hung signs everywhere and as pathetic as it all seems now, it was kind of fun.

Now, the inevitable. Dukakis was handed a big ‘ol GOP ass-whuppin’ on Election Day. It was over before all the returns were even in. I sat in the main lounge of my dorm fuming a little. I expected to lose but this was ridiculous. And to top it all off, Steve the jerk came in the front door and saw me. "Dukakis, Dukakis" he cried in mock triumph with is fists pumping in the air. Man, I was pissed. It was humiliating. Looking back, I was probably a little bitter. But what bugged me was not that all the issues that he campaigned on would go by the wayside. I can’t even think of what they are. What really bothered me was that my guy lost. And I would have to spend the next four years dealing with it.

There is one other perspective from my experiences in college I'd like to relate. People often hear that the Democratic Party is in lockstep with the TeacherÂ’s Unions, that teachers are a monolithic voting block. Well, IÂ’m here to tell you itÂ’s so true that itÂ’s scary. During the final weeks of the campaign I was doing my student teaching. (I should point out here that after graduation, I did not go on to a career in teaching. My experience "on the inside" of the Education profession stopped here.) It was in a fairly well-funded regional system in an affluent group of towns. My cooperating teacher was great and I remember the overall experience with quite a bit of fondness. However, this was my first experience in the trenches of professional education. And what I saw was a little eye-opening. All of the teachers that I came into contact were Democrats and all were rapidly anti-Bush. It seemed to be based on an irrational fear that, if elected, George Bush would cut all federal funding to public schools and work hard to get as many teachers thrown out on the street as possible. Unfortunately for the Republicans, this is a false image that Democrats have pushed for years, and the GOP didnÂ’t have a history of fighting that stereotype. But more about that later.

I felt it in the culture. It was a "let’s stick together and fight the enemy" mentality. So this phenomenon is not a new one. Unfortunately, I fell into this mentality as well. I remember doing some post-election analysis for my eight grade class. Under the guise of explaining the electoral process, I took the opportunity to undermine Bush’s victory to these impressionable kids. Basically, I took the election results and used math and percentages to point out that of all the people eligible (not registered – eligible) to vote, less than 25% if that total number actually voted for Bush. Never mind that even fewer voted for Dukakis. But the not-so-subtle point I made that day was that the President-Elect of the United States had the "true" support of less than 1 in 4 of its citizens. Technically, it was true but it really took the results out of context. I’m ashamed to say that I willingly used by position to push my views at a captive audience who probably took most of what I said at face value. It is ironic that in the close election of 2000, I would see Gore supporters using the same tactics to undermine the next President-Elect Bush.

One other postscript to this election - Lee Atwater died in 1990 of a brain aneurism. He was only in his forties. Something else I’m ashamed to admit is that, at the time, I saw this tragedy as a positive turn of events because Atwater now was a weapon no longer available to the GOP arsenal. For a long time, I blamed him for the fiasco of ’88 when in reality it was Dukakis who blew it. Strange as it would seem, the Democrats would later get an Atwater of their own named James Carville. And for a while, I loved him the way I hated Atwater – because he was on our side. (To be continued...)

Part VI

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