Dukakis: Obama better prepared for GOP assault than I was
Agamemnon
Story Highlights
Michael Dukakis won't endorse, but calls Barack Obama likely Democratic
nominee
Dukakis, Democrats' 1988 nominee, calls on party to organize at precinct
level
He says Obama more prepared than he was for Republicans' rough campaign
Dukakis advises careful, detailed process to choose running mate
(CNN) -- Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic nominee for president and
former Massachusetts governor, appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" on
Wednesday night, joining substitute host John King to talk about what the
Democrats need to do to win the presidency in November. Some highlights:
On "Larry King Live," Michael Dukakis talks about his campaign in 1988 and
what faces this year's nominee.
John King: Sen. [John] Edwards jumped into the fray today with that
endorsement [of Barack Obama]. How about Gov. Dukakis?
Michael Dukakis: Well, I made a decision I wasn't going to endorse. I like
both of these candidates [Sens. Hillary Clinton and Obama] and I think
they're both terrific. And they're each pioneers in their own way, as we
both know.
My self-appointed role, for whatever it's worth -- and it may be worth
nothing -- is to try to get this party of mine to get serious about
organizing every one of the 200,000 precincts in the United States of
America and stop buying into this red -blue nonsense, which is nonsense.
And that's what I hope I can persuade my fellow Democrats to do. We've got
to organize at the precinct level. We haven't done it. I didn't do it very
well. We haven't done it, really, since John Kennedy ran for the presidency.
And if we're going to win this thing, that's what we have to do.
So those folks in West Virginia who really don't know Barack Obama have
people who live in their communities, vote in their communities, talk and
walk like them, knocking on their doors and bringing the message directly to
them. We haven't done that in a long, long time.
King: Do you assume Barack Obama will be the nominee, even though you're not
endorsing, based on the math?
Dukakis: I don't think you can assume anything. But unless something happens
in the course of the next two or three weeks that really comes out of the
blue, I mean, it seems to me that he's the likely nominee.
King: You left Atlanta and the [1988] convention with a 17-point lead in the
national polls. And you know what happened after that convention. And the
Republicans say they will do it this year to Barack Obama. They say, when
they are done with him, they will convince the American people he is more
liberal than George McGovern, more liberal than Walter Mondale and more
liberal, yes, sir, than Michael Dukakis.
And they say when you look at his record on crime, when you look at his
record on taxes, when you look at his record when it comes to same-sex
marriage or on abortion rights, that they can push him to the left of center
far enough so that what happened to you will happen to him.
Do you think they can do that? What would your advice be for Barack Obama?
Dukakis: Well, they're certainly going to try. I mean it's already begun,
John. They got the guy that did the Willie Horton ad on me to do this
outrageous ad in the state of North Carolina. John McCain deplored it, asked
them to take it off and they didn't take it off.
Now, nobody is going to tell me that if John McCain wants the Republican
Party in North Carolina to take an ad off the air, he can't do it. I mean,
if he can't do it, he shouldn't be running for the presidency.
So it's already begun. But if you listen carefully to Sen. Obama in his
victory speech after the North Carolina primary, it's quite obvious that he
and the people around him know what's about to happen and they're ready for
it.
I wasn't. I made, as you know, a deliberate decision. It was my decision and
nobody else's -- it turned out to be a terrible decision -- that I would not
respond to the Bush attack campaign. Clearly, we cannot do that. He's not
going to do that.
King: One of the things they say they would use against Barack Obama,
perhaps, is his 20-year attendance at a church with a pastor who has given
some rather provocative lectures and sermons, some of which can easily be
interpreted, at least the snippets of them, as anti-American.
Is that fair game?
Dukakis: Well, I don't think it's fair game. But I don't think it's ever
troubled the Republican Party when it comes to fair game.
I mean in -- four years ago, they went after a genuine war hero and tried to
turn him into somebody who either had faked his record or whatever, while
the president of the United States was sitting in Alabama reading magazines
and the vice president of the United States had done everything he could to
avoid service in Vietnam. And we've seen this many, many times.
But I think it's very clear that Sen. Obama knows what's going to be hitting
him, already does, and I think will be prepared.
King: Would you recommend that Barack Obama pick Hillary Clinton [as a
running mate]? Would that be a ticket that you think would win the White
House?
Dukakis: I don't think anybody can tell you exactly who his running mate
ought to be. What he's got to do -- and it was one of the few things that I
did right in 1988 -- what he's got to do is go through a very careful
process of looking at all of the potential candidates for vice president.
And if he does it right -- and it's hard to describe this, John -- but if
you do it right, it inevitably leads to the right choice.
We went through a very, very sound, detailed process. And when it was all
over, it was clear that Lloyd Bentsen was my running mate. And, by the way,
he was a terrific running mate. And if I had done a better job of running
myself in that final, I think Lloyd Bentsen could have made the difference.
stef
What does Dukakis have to do with Greek culture, Agamemnon?
Lucky Velotres
by Brzezinski who will free us from the
soviet agents in our greektown churches!
But McCain is great, too, because he
will bomb Moscow directly!
All three candidates are great because they will
put an ent to ras-Putin and the soviets.