Is the 2016 presidential election Michael Dukakis’ revenge? “This election shouldn’t be about ideology,” Hillary Clinton told the American Legion. “It’s not just about differences over policy.”
“It is truly about who has the experience and the temperament to serve as president and commander in chief.”
Sound familiar? “This election isn’t about ideology; it’s about competence,” Dukakis said in his 1988 speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. “It’s not about meaningless labels; it’s about American values — old-fashioned values like accountability and responsibility and respect for the truth.”
Dukakis was a risk-averse candidate to the point of being boring. He famously showed no emotion when a debate moderator raised the prospect of his wife being raped and murdered in a question about the death penalty.
His patrician opponent George H.W. Bush seemed taken aback, but Bush’s campaign manager Lee Atwater had fewer inhibitions. Atwater ruthlessly painted Dukakis as a soft-on-crime, anti-pledge of allegiance ACLU liberal. “By the time we’re finished, they’re going to wonder if [furloughed murderer] Willie Horton is Dukakis’ running mate,” he said (Atwater later apologized for the remark).
Donald Trump has similarly hit Clinton with the kitchen sink, albeit until recently in an unfocused manner. He has hired pugilists such as former Breitbart executive Stephen Bannon and longtime anti-Clinton provocateur David Bossie, the man responsible for the Citizens United Supreme Court decision liberals love to hate and the conservative organization of the same name.
Dukakis blew a 17-point lead after the Democratic convention by trying to be too far above the fray when hit by a negative campaign. The polls this year are tightening again but Clinton has usually hugged the lead by letting Trump go out in public and damage himself.
Clinton can go negative herself when it suits her. She delivered a speech all but calling Trump a racist and her campaign produced a video tying him to the Ku Klux Klan. Trump didn’t hold back in response, expressly calling her a “bigot” who views black and Hispanic-Americans as votes rather than human beings.
The former secretary of state has definitely taken fewer risks than Trump and so far it seems to be paying off. Yet revelations from Clinton’s State Department emails keep decreasing public trust and Trump has finally adopted a more professional tone to his campaign.
That doesn’t exactly mean the mythical “pivot” to the general election the political press keeps pining for has actually occurred, perhaps the most overworked word of the campaign cycle. Trump is always going to be an unconventional candidate.
But Trump has belatedly tried to counter the perception that he is hostile toward minorities. Even his rally speeches are now delivered from prepared texts. He can be diplomatic in Mexico and pugnacious in reminding supporters in Arizona who is going to build the wall along the border.
Maybe the improbable pairing of Bannon and GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway is working. “In Kellyanne’s case she has been around campaigns her entire professional life,” said Trump-supporting former Reagan political director Jeffrey Lord. “She is perfect for this job. Steve comes from a different background in the media and has a very keen sense of message, organization and the rest.”
Clinton remains committed to treating Trump as some alien force in American politics in a way Dukakis never could do to Bush, a sitting vice president of the United States. In this contest, the Republican candidate is more like Atwater. Clinton hopes this time, slow and boring can win the race.
