Dukakis '88

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Michael Dukakis (1933- ) ran as the Democratic Party's nominee for US President in 1988. Dukakis was then Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1975-1991) and had previously been state representative for the Commonwealth's Norfolk District (1963-1971). His father immigrated from Turkey in 1912 and settled in Lowell, Massachusetts. His mother's family was from Greece and settled in Haverhill, twenty miles downstream on the Merrimack River, in 1913. At the time both Massachusetts cities were centers for the textile industry and first US cities for many immigrants. Dukakis graduated from Brookline (Massachusetts) High School, then Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, before serving in the US Army from 1955 to 1957. After the Army, Dukakis attended Harvard Law School, and graduated in 1960.

His 1988 presidential bid was based around the "Massachusetts Miracle," in which the Commonwealth experienced a strong economic uptick after two generations of de-industrialization and unemployment, especially in the cities along the Merrimack River.  The idea was that Dukakis could do for the nation what he had done for Massachusetts.  Unfortunately, for Dukakis, then US Vice President, Republican George H. W. Bush (1924- ) painted a picture of Dukakis not as a leader and reformer but as someone who would be soft on crime and uneducated on foreign policy.  The America public agreed.  Dukakis faced Bush election and lost by a margin of 426 Electoral College votes to 111.