The 1988 presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis began when he announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party's 1988 presidential nomination on March 16, 1987, in a speech in Boston. After winning the nomination, he was formally crowned the Democratic Party's nominee at the party's convention in Atlanta, Georgia on July 21, 1988. He lost the 1988 election to his Republican opponent George H. W. Bush, who was the sitting Vice President at the time. Dukakis won 10 states and the District of Columbia, receiving a total of 111 electoral votes compared to Bush's 426. Dukakis received 46% of the popular vote to Bush's 54%. Many commentators blamed Dukakis' loss on the embarrassing photograph of him in a tank taken on September 13, 1988, which subsequently formed the basis of a successful Republican attack ad. Much of the blame was also laid on Dukakis' campaign, which was criticized for being poorly managed despite being well funded. He would have been the first Greek American President.
On March 16, 1987, Dukakis, then the Governor of Massachusetts, gave what has become known as the "Marathon Speech" in Boston in which he hinted that he was running for President in next year's election. He formally announced that he would run in a speech given the following month. Previously, he had been urged to consider running for president by Mario Cuomo, who had dropped out the previous month. This made him the third declared Democratic candidate for the 1988 election, after Richard A. Gephardt and Bruce Babbitt. Dukakis soon received an outpouring of support from voters throughout the country, which reportedly resulted in him receiving more attention than even he had expected.
Democratic Primaries
By May 1988, Dukakis had become the Democratic Party's front-runner for their nomination in that year's election, thanks to his victories in the New York and Pennsylvania primaries. On June 7, 1988, Dukakis clinched the Democratic Party's nomination by winning all four of the party's last primaries against Jesse Jackson, the only other remaining Democratic candidate at the time. These victories gave Dukakis significantly more delegates than the 2,081 required to win the nomination.
"Massachusetts Miracle"
Dukakis' campaign was focused on his experience as Governor of Massachusetts, during which time Massachusetts had emerged from an economic depression and had become a "bastion of prosperity and full employment". Commentators had described this as the "Massachusetts Miracle", a term Bush dismissed as the "Massachusetts mirage".
On July 12, 1988, Dukakis announced he had chosen Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate, in the hopes of garnering more support in the South. Dukakis compared his pick to John F. Kennedy's pick of Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate in the 1960 election. As a result, his ticket became known as the "Boston-Austin axis", as Bentsen himself described it. Shortly after Dukakis made the pick, a Timecover story dubbed Dukakis and Bentsen "the odd couple", and Richard Stengel noted in 1988 that Bentsen was "...more Bush’s twin than Dukakis’".
During the campaign, Dukakis was the target of several now-infamous attack ads by individuals supporting the Bush campaign, most infamously the "Willie Horton" ad produced by the pro-Bush National Security Political Action Committee. Although the Bush campaign disavowed the ad, it still played a major role in Dukakis' defeat. The Dukakis campaign was mired in confusion during the general election, as exemplified by "the Handlers", a series of unintentionally confusing commercials that the campaign produced and aired at a cost of $3 million. Dukakis also erred in not responding to the Horton attack until late in the campaign.
On October 20, 1988, Donna Brazile resigned from her role as deputy field director for the Dukakis campaign after saying that Bush needed to "fess up" about a rumor that he had had an extramarital affair. Her comments were also disavowed by the campaign, and Dukakis personally apologized to Bush for them at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner that year.
Polling
A poll conducted on July 21 and 22 of 1988 found that Dukakis had expanded the size of his lead over Bush to 17 points, with 55% of voters surveyed saying they would prefer Dukakis to win, compared to 38% for Bush. His lead soon began to shrink, however. For example, on July 30, Dukakis criticized the Reagan administration's handling of ethical issues, to which President Reagan himself responded by describing Dukakis as an "invalid", after which his poll numbers dropped by 5 points overnight. By August 11, Dukakis' lead over Bush had shrunk to 7 points, and by August 24, Bush had gained a 4-point lead over Dukakis. Of the dramatic shift in Dukakis' poll numbers, Mervin Field said, "I have never seen anything like this, this kind of swing in favorability ratings, ever since I have seen polls, going back to 1936." Later that year, after the second Bush-Dukakis debate occurred on October 13, Dukakis' numbers dropped by 7 points that night, largely due to his emotionless response to a question about whether he would support the death penalty for someone if they raped and murdered his wife, Kitty Dukakis.
