UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 1988

The 'United States presidential election of 1988' featured an open primary for both major parties. Ronald Reagan, the incumbent President, was vacating the position after serving the maximum two terms allowed by the Twenty-second Amendment. Reagan's Vice President, George Bush, won the Republican nomination, while the Democrats nominated Michael Dukakis, Governor of Massachusetts. Bush capitalized on Reagan's popularity while Dukakis's campaign suffered from several miscues; the result was a third consecutive lopsided Republican presidential election victory.

Contents

Nominations

Democratic Party nomination

Republican Party nomination

Other nominations

General election

Campaign

Results

Statistics

Close states

References

See also

Notes

External links

Navigation

Nominations

Democratic Party nomination

Having been badly defeated in the 1984 presidential election, the Democrats were eager to find a new approach to win the presidency. They felt more optimistic this time due to the large gains in the 1986 mid-term election which resulted in the Democrats taking back control of the Senate after 6 years of Republican rule.
In early 1987, Senator Gary Hart was the clear frontrunner in the field (Democratic party efforts to recruit New York Governor Mario Cuomo aside). Hart had put in a strong showing in the 1984 presidential election, and had refined his campaign in the intervening years.
However, questions about extramarital affairs dogged the charismatic candidate. One of the great myths is that Senator Hart challenged the media to 'put a tail' on him. In actuality, the ''Miami Herald'' had received an anonymous tip from a friend of Donna Rice's that Rice was involved with Hart. It was only after Hart had been discovered that the Herald reporters found Hart's quote in a copy of New York Times magazine. On May 8, 1987, a week after the Donna Rice story broke, Hart dropped out of the race. In December of 1987, Hart returned to the race. However, the damage had been done.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts had been considered a potential candidate, but he ruled himself out of the 1988 campaign in the fall of 1985. Two other politicians mentioned as a possible candidates - Senator Dale Bumpers and Governor (and future President) Bill Clinton, both from Arkansas, didn't join the race.
Joseph Biden's campaign was also surrounded with controversy, as he was found to have plagiarized a line from one of his speeches from British Labour party leader Neil Kinnock, and then was found to have also engaged in plagiarism in law school. This would lead him to drop out of the race. Dukakis later revealed that his campaign was responsible for leaking the tape, and two members of his staff resigned. The Delaware Supreme Court's Board on Professional Responsibility would later clear Biden of the law school plagiarism charges.^[1]
In the Iowa caucuses, Gephardt finished first, Simon finished second, and Dukakis finished third. In the New Hampshire primary, Dukakis finished first, Gephardt finished second, and Simon finished third. Dukakis and Gore campaigned hard against Gephardt with negative ads, and eventually the United Auto Workers retracted their endorsement of Gephardt, who was heavily dependent on labor union backing.
In the Super Tuesday races, Dukakis won six primaries, Gore five, Jackson five and Gephardt one, with Gore and Jackson splitting the southern states. The next week, Simon won Illinois. 1988 remains the race with the most candidates winning primaries since the McGovern reforms of 1971. Dukakis eventually emerged as the winner, with Gore's effort to paint Dukakis as too liberal for the general election being unsuccessful and causing him to withdraw. Jackson focused more on getting enough delegates to make sure African-American interests were represented in the platform than on winning.^[2]
The Democratic Party Convention was held in Atlanta, Georgia July 18 - 21. The Dukakis nominating speech delivered by Arkansas governor Bill Clinton was widely criticized as too long and tedious.^[3]
Texas State Treasurer Ann Richards (who two years later became the state governor) delivered a memorable keynote address in which she uttered the lines "Poor George [Bush], he can't help it, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth." 6 years later, Bush's son George W. Bush would deny Richards re-election as Texas Governor.
With most candidates having withdrawn and asking their delegates to vote for Dukakis, the tally for president was as follows:

★ Michael Dukakis 2687

★ Jesse Jackson 1218

★ Joseph Biden 2

★ Richard Gephardt 2

★ Gary Hart 1

★ Lloyd Bentsen 1
Jesse Jackson's campaign believed, that since they had come a respectable second, they were entitled to the Vice presidential spot. Dukakis refused, and gave the spot to Lloyd Bentsen.
Bentsen was selected in large part to secure the state of Texas and its large electoral vote for the Democrats. Because of Bentsen's status of something of an elder statesman who was more experienced in elected politics, many believed Dukakis' selection of Bentsen as his running mate was a mistake in that Bentsen, number two on the ticket, appeared more "presidential" than did Dukakis. During the vice-presidential debate, Republican candidate and Senator Dan Quayle ignored a head-on confrontation with Bentsen (aside from the "Jack Kennedy" comparison) and spent his time attacking Dukakis.
Among the field of candidates were the following:

Republican Party nomination

Vice President George H. W. Bush had the support of President Ronald Reagan, and pledged to continue Reagan's policies, but also pledged a "kinder and gentler nation" in an attempt to win over some more moderate voters.
There nevertheless emerged a few challengers for the nomination. Because of this there are following candidates to the GOP nomination:

Bush unexpectedly came in third in the Iowa caucus (that he had won back in 1980), behind winner Dole and Robertson. Dole was also leading in the polls of the New Hampshire primary, and the Bush camp responded by running television commercials portraying Dole as a tax raiser, while Governor John H. Sununu stumped for Bush. These efforts enabled the Vice President to defeat Dole and gain crucial momentum. After his loss Dole was bitter about his defeat, going on TV to tell Bush to "stop lying about my record."^[4]
Once the multiple-state primaries such as Super Tuesday began, Bush's organizational strength and fundraising lead were impossible for the other candidates to match, and the nomination was his. The Republican party convention was held in New Orleans, Louisiana. Bush was nominated unanimously. Bush selected U.S. Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana as his running mate.
In his acceptance speech, Bush made an energetic pledge, "", a comment that would come to haunt him in the 1992 elections.

Other nominations

★ David E. Duke - Populist Party: A former leader of the Louisiana Ku Klux Klan, he advocated a mix of White Nationalist policies and more traditionally conservative positions, such as opposition to immigration from Latin America and affirmative action.

★ Lenora Fulani - New Alliance Party: Focused on issues concerning unemployment, healthcare, and homelessness.

★ Willa Kenoyer / Ron Ehrenreich - Socialist Party USA: Advocated a decentralist government approach with policies determined by the needs of the workers.

★ Ron Paul - Libertarian Party: Called for the adoption of a global policy on military non-intervention; wanted to uninvolve the Federal Government with education; critical of Reagan's "bail out" of the Soviet Union. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives, first elected as a Republican from Texas in an April 1976 special election. He resigned from the Republican Party in protest over the "War on Drugs" policy, which he made clear in a letter to then-"Drug Czar" William Bennett. His running-mate was Andre Marrou of Alaska.

General election

Campaign

During the election, the Bush campaign sought to portray Governor Dukakis as a "Massachusetts liberal" who was unreasonably left wing. Dukakis was attacked for such positions as opposing mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, as well as being a "card carrying member of the ACLU" (a statement made by Dukakis concerning himself early in the primary campaign). Dukakis countered by saying that he was a "proud liberal" and that the phrase should stop being a bad word in America. The Dukakis camp tried to tie Bush to some of the recent scandals of the Reagan Administration, such as Iran-Contra, and argued that Republicans were too hawkish on foreign policy.

Governor Dukakis attempted to quell criticism that he was ignorant on military matters by staging a photo op in which he drove an M1 Abrams tank outside a General Dynamics plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan.^[5] The move ended up being a massive PR blunder, with many mocking Dukakis's appearance as he stuck his smiling, helmeted head out of the tank's entrance portal to wave to the crowd. Footage of Dukakis was used by the Bush campaign as evidence he would not make a good commander-in-chief, and "Dukakis in the tank" remains shorthand for backfired public relations outings.^[6]
Bush's running mate was Senator Dan Quayle. Quayle was chosen to appeal to a younger generation of Americans and his good looks were praised by Senator John McCain, who said "I can't believe a guy that handsome wouldn't have some impact." ^[7] Quayle was not a seasoned politician, however, and had a continual habit of making embarrassing statements. The Dukakis team in return blasted Quayle's credentials, saying he was dangerously inexperienced to be first-in-line to the presidency.^[8]
During the Vice Presidential debate, Quayle attempted to dispel such allegations by comparing his experience with that of former Senator John F. Kennedy, who had also been a young political rookie when running for the presidency. During the Vice Presidential debate, Quayle said, "I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency." (Kennedy had served fourteen years in Congress to Quayle's twelve.) Dukakis' running mate, Lloyd Bentsen, responded, "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."^[9]
Quayle responded, "That was really uncalled for, Senator," to which Bentsen said, "You are the one that was making the comparison, Senator, and I'm one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken."
Quayle's reaction to Bentsen's comment was played and replayed by the Democrats in their subsequent television ads as an announcer intoned: "Quayle: just a heartbeat away." Despite much press about the Kennedy comments, this did not derail the Bush-Quayle lead. Quayle had sought to use the debate to criticize Dukakis as too liberal rather than go point for point with the more seasoned Bentsen. Bentsen's attempts to defend Dukakis received little recognition as greater attention given to his Kennedy comparison.
Dukakis' campaign suffered a setback when staff member Donna Brazile resigned after she spread rumors that Bush was having extramarital affair with Jennifer Fitzgerald, who had been his secretary throughout the 1970s (the relationship of George H.W. Bush and Jennifer Fitzgerald would be briefly rehashed during the 1992 campaign). ^[10][11]
The most controversial criticism against Dukakis involved his support for a prison furlough program, which had begun before he was governor, that resulted in the release of convicted murderer Willie Horton, who committed a rape and assault in Maryland after being furloughed. The program was abolished by the state legislature in April 1988 after public outcry over the Willie Horton furlough. As Governor, Dukakis had actually vetoed a 1976 plan to bar inmates convicted of first-degree murder from the furlough program. Dukakis was badly hurt by the Republican "Willie Horton", "Revolving Door" and "Boston Harbor" campaign ads, which attacked the governor's failure to clean up environmental pollution in the harbor.
A number of false rumors were reported in the media about Dukakis, including the claim by Idaho Republican Senator Steve Symms that Dukakis's wife Kitty had burned an American flag to protest the Vietnam War, as well as the claim that Dukakis himself had been treated for a mental illness. Lee Atwater was accused of having floating these rumors.^[12]
Although Dukakis did well in the first presidential debate, Bush seemed to score a triumph in the second debate, with a Gallup Poll giving him a 49-43 lead.^[13] Before the second debate, Dukakis had been suffering from the flu and spent quite a bit of the day in bed. His performance was poor and played to his reputation as being cold. The most memorable moment came when reporter Bernard Shaw asked Dukakis whether he would support the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered. Dukakis's answer analyzed the statistical ineffectiveness of capital punishment. Several commentators thought the question itself was unfair, in that it injected an irrelevant emotional element into the discussion of a policy issue, but many observers felt Dukakis' answer lacked the normal emotions one would expect of a person asked about a loved one's rape and death.^[14] Tom Brokaw of NBC reported on his October 14 newscast: "The consensus tonight is that Vice President George Bush won last night's debate and made it all the harder for Governor Michael Dukakis to catch and pass him in the 25 days remaining. In all of the Friday morning quarterbacking, there was common agreement that Dukakis failed to seize the debate and make it his night."

Results

The election on November 8, 1988 was a majority for Bush in the popular vote and a lopsided majority (40 states) in the Electoral College.
Bush performed very strongly among suburban voters, perhaps owing to his campaign themes of law and order, punctuated by his criticisms of the Massachusetts furlough program. This was a boon in several swing states. In Illinois, Bush won 69% in DuPage County and 63% out of Lake County, suburban areas which adjoin Chicago's Cook County. In Pennsylvania, Bush swept the group of suburban counties that surround Philadelphia, including Bucks, Delaware, Chester, and Montgomery. Bush also won most of the counties in Maryland, perhaps fallout from the fact that Willie Horton committed his infamous criminal acts there. New Jersey, known at the time for its many suburban voters and its moderate Republicanism, went easily for Bush; Bush also gained victory for attacking Dukakis' furlough program he had while he was Governor of Massachusetts [1], though Dukakis still maintained popularity in Massachusetts.
Contrary to the suburbs was the decrease among rural counties, easily falling below the support they gave Reagan in 1980 and 1984. In Illinois, Bush lost a number of downstate counties that previously went for Reagan. He lost the state of Iowa by a surprisingly wide margin, losing counties all across the state even in traditionally Republican areas. The rural state of West Virginia remained handily in the Democratic column. Bush also performed weaker in the northern counties of Missouri, making the state a close win. Three typically solid Republican states, Kansas, South Dakota, and Montana, came much closer than usual. The farm states had faired poorly during farm recession of the 1980's. It is not surprising that the Democrat Dukakis was the beneficiary of these farm problems in America's heartland.
Bush's greatest area of strength was in the south, winning most states by wide margins. He also performed very well in the northeast, winning Maine (where he had a residence), New Hampshire (at the time a Republican stronghold), Vermont (at the time a bastion of moderate Republicanism), and Connecticut (where his father had been a senator). Bush lost New York by a margin of just over 4 percent. He also won Delaware, at the time a swing state. Despite the presence of Lloyd Bentsen on the Democratic ticket (and other Texans getting prominent roles at the Democratic convention), Bush won the lone star state by a convincing margin. He lost the Pacific northwestern states but kept California in the Republican column for the sixth straight time, albeit by a smaller margin than Reagan had had.
Although his victory was not a landslide in the popular, Bush in 1988 was the last Republican to carry certain states which have since gained a reputation as "blue states" that favor the Democratic Party in presidential elections. These states are California, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Vermont, Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Maine, and Michigan. New Mexico used to be in this category, but George W. Bush won it in 2004, making him the first Republican to carry it since 1988.
Overall, Bush's relatively big win (at least in the electoral college) can be attributed to general satisfaction with the status quo in the country. Peace and prosperity propelled the Republican Party to its third consecutive presidential win. Reagan's popularity and Bush's position as Vice President did more to help his cause than any great dissatisfaction with Dukakis. Bush had essentially no coattails, and he came into office with a Democratic Congress angry and vindictive after all the negative campaign he ran against Dukakis. Even though the Democrats may have lost their presidential bid they were able to strengthen their majorities in Congress.

Statistics

'Source (Popular Vote):'
'Source (Electoral Vote):'
^(a) ''West Virginia faithless elector Margaret Leach voted for Bentsen as President and Dukakis as Vice President in order to make a statement against the U.S. Electoral College.''

^(b) ''Fulani's running mate varied from state to state.^[15] Among the six vice presidential candidates were Joyce Dattner, Harold Moore^[16], and somebody with the last name of “Burke”.^[17]''

Close states

Red-colored states were won by Bush, blue by Dukakis.
#'Washington', 1.59%
#'Illinois', 2.09%
#'Pennsylvania', 2.31%
#'Maryland', 2.91%
#'Vermont', 3.52%
#'California', 3.57%
#'Wisconsin', 3.61%
#'Missouri', 3.98%
#'Oregon', 4.67%
#'New Mexico', 4.96%

References

★ James B. Lemert, William R. Elliott, James M. Bernstein, William L. Rosenberg, Karl J. Nestvold; ''News Verdicts, the Debates, and Presidential Campaigns'' Praeger Publishers, 1991

★ Laurence W. Moreland, Robert P. Steed, Tod A. Baker; ''The 1988 Presidential Election in the South: Continuity Amidst Change in Southern Party Politics'' Praeger Publishers, 1991

★ David R. Runkel; ''Campaign for President: The Managers Look at '88'' Auburn House, 1989

★ Guido H. Stempel III and John W. Windhauser; ''The Media in the 1984 and 1988 Presidential Campaigns'' Greenwood Press, 1991

See also

★ President of the United States

★ United States Senate elections, 1988

★ History of the United States (1988–present)

Notes

1. Professional Board Clears Biden In Two Allegations of Plagiarism
2. Waiting for The Jackson Reaction; Will Jesse End His Crusade With a Bang or a Whimper? Juan Williams
3. I just fell on my sword John Brummert
4. Even with win, Bush seen to be vulnerable John Dillin
5. Dukakis spells out Soviet policy Ben, Jr. Bradlee
6. Rat-Tat-Tatting William Safire ; Bush Talks of Lasers and Bombers Maureen Dowd
7. Bush taps Quayle for VP Jeff Mapes
8. Quayle Reflects Badly on Bush, Dukakis Asserts Robin Toner
9. Dan Quayle in the Vice Presidential Debate
10. Conason, Joe (July/August 1992). "Reason No. 1 Not To Vote For George Bush: He Cheats on His Wife." ''Spy magazine''.
11. Kurtz, Howard (August 12, 1992). "Bush Angrily Denounces Report of Extramarital Affair as 'a Lie.'" ''Washington Post''.
12. Editors (August 26, 1988) "Story on Mrs. Dukakis Is Denied by Campaign." ''New York Times''.
13. Bush Edge Is Holding In Survey
14. Editors on Dukakis: Down, but not out Paul Hirshson
15. Booty Call Mark Athitakis
16. The Making of a Fringe Candidate, , Lenora, Fulani, , 1992,
17. Political Party History in Alaska

External links

★ 1988 popular vote by counties

★ 1988 popular vote by state

★ 1988 popular vote by states (with bar graphs)

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