Michael Dukakis
Michael Dukakis was Governor of Massachusetts for three terms and the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988, losing a race he had led by seventeen points in the summer. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1933 to Greek immigrants — his father was the first Greek immigrant to attend Harvard Medical School — he ran the marathon, served in Korea, and took a Harvard law degree. He entered the state legislature in 1963 as a reformer, won the governorship in 1974, and was defeated in his own party's primary in 1978, a rejection he later said taught him humility. He returned in 1982 and served until 1991. His second and third terms coincided with the Massachusetts Miracle: unemployment fell from about twelve per cent to three, driven by technology and defence firms along Route 128, and he balanced budgets, expanded health coverage and created a welfare-to-work programme. He was named the most effective governor in the country by his peers in 1986. He won the 1988 nomination and ran on competence rather than ideology. The campaign was then defined by attacks: the Willie Horton advertisements, exploiting a weekend furlough programme he had inherited and a crime committed by a released prisoner, which traded openly on racial fear; a photograph of him in a tank wearing an oversized helmet; and a debate question about whether he would favour the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered, which he answered with a flat policy statement that struck viewers as bloodless. He lost forty states to George H. W. Bush. Massachusetts then fell into recession, and he left office deeply unpopular. He taught at Northeastern for decades afterwards.
- Lived: 1933 CE – ?
- Nationality: American
- Roles: governor
