Michael Dukakis, the former Democratic governor of Massachusetts who lost his White House candidacy in 1988 to then-Vice President George HW Bush, warns Joe Biden not to take too seriously the polls that show him with a double-digit lead over the president. Trump.
A recent Fox News poll has Biden, the alleged Democratic candidate, leading Trump 50-38 nationwide as concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, racism and unemployment grow. It also leads Trump by 8.8 percentage points on an average from the latest national polls compiled by Real Clear Politics.
By comparison, in late July 1988, a Newsweek / Gallup poll showed Dukakis with a 55-38 advantage over Bush, according to The Boston Globe.
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“Particularly this year, [polls] it must be studied with caution, “Dukakis told the Globe.” Biden can and should win, but being 50, no matter how weak your opponent is, is no guarantee of success. “
Dukakis’ numbers plummeted after a series of public relations mistakes, as well as what was deemed dispassionate performance in the second debate between him and Bush. At one point, CNN presenter Bernard Shaw asked Dukakis if he would support the death penalty if his wife were raped and killed.
Dukakis said “no”, citing his belief that capital punishment does not deter crime. Many viewed his response as cold.
Presidential nominee Vice President George HW Bush and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis shake hands before the start of their debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
“It was a question about Dukakis’ values and emotions,” campaign manager Susan Estrich later recalled, according to Politico. “When she responded by talking about politics, I knew we lost the elections.”
Dukakis’ numbers dipped further after a Bush campaign attack announcement featuring Willie Horton, a black man who raped and killed a white woman and stabbed her fiancé in a 1987 home invasion in Maryland. Horton had escaped from a weekend permit in a Massachusetts prison when the murder occurred.
The license program had been in place while Dukakis was governor.
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The ad portrayed him as mild with crime and he was widely condemned for fanning racial divisions.
Ronald Reagan, the current president at the time, also referred to Dukakis as an “invalid”, prompting questions about the governor’s state of mind. Reagan later claimed he was joking.
“I think I lost eight points in the week that Reagan called me ‘invalid’,” Dukakis told the Globe in an email. “I never took those first few polls seriously.”
Similarly, Trump and his supporters have frequently questioned Biden’s mental acuity. She did the same to Hillary Clinton in 2016, calling her “deranged” and suggesting that she was not ready for the office of president.
“I think Biden is now weaker than Dukakis in 1988,” wrote Globe columnist Alex Beam. “Biden is fighting a sitting president who can wield the levers of power for his own benefit almost any time he wants. And Biden, it can be argued, is not Dukakis.”
Beam noted that Dukakis had turned 55 days before Election Day in 1988, while Biden is 77 and prone to “miserable.” Dukakis also chaired as governor of Massachusetts during a sustained period of economic growth, he said.
“What can Biden take credit for?” Beam said. “A useful term as a small-state senator, eight years of outstanding vice presidential life, and, not to forget, an impeccable losing record in presidential campaigns.”
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Meanwhile, longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove, who informally reports the Trump campaign, told Fox News on Friday that Trump must press the reset button before the Republican National Convention.
He also cited Bush’s victory over Dukakis after continuing in the polls months before his election.
“When you’re in the barrel, when you get a lot of bad press and the polls are going against you, you should do something that says, ‘We’re moving in a different direction.’ That’s what I mean by a reset,” he said in ” America’s Newsroom. “
