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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. Among the field of candidates were the following: In early 1987, Sen. Gary Hart was the clear frontrunner in the field (Democratic party efforts to recruit New York Gov. 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. Joseph Biden's campaign was also surrounded with controversy, as he was found to have plagiarized a speech 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. The plagiarized speech was revealed in a videotape of both speeches leaked to the press. It was later learned that he had correctly credited Kinnock on other occasions but failed to do so in the Iowa speech that was distributed. The initial speculation incorrectly pointed the blame on the Gephardt campaign as the source of the tape. Michael Dukakis later revealed that his campaign was responsible for leaking the tape, and two members of his staff resigned. It has also been alleged that Biden had plagiarized while in law school 20 years earlier in a first-year legal-writing class. Unaware of appropriate standards for legal briefs at the beginning of his legal training, Biden used a single footnote rather than multiple citations required to cite five pages from a legal article. Both Syracuse University Law School and the Delaware State Bar Association cleared Biden of the law school plagiarism charges. 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 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. The Democratic Party Convention was held in Atlanta, Georgia. It was primarily noteworthy for the Dukakis nominating speech delivered by Arkansas governor Bill Clinton; it was widely criticized as too long and tedious. With most candidates having withdrawn and asking their delegates to vote for Dukakis, the tally for president was as follows: Jesse Jackson's campaign believed, that since they had come a respectable second, they demanded 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. One elector in West Virginia even cast a ballot for him rather than Dukakis in voting, giving him one electoral vote for President. 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, gentler America" in an attempt to win over some more moderate voters. There nevertheless emerged a few challengers for the nomination. They were: 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." 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. When vocal opposition to Bush's selection of Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana as vice president, became louder and louder, the rules were suddenly changed, and Quayle was nominated by voice vote. In his acceptance speech, Bush made an energetic pledge, "", a comment that would come to hurt him in the 1992 elections. Other nominations Campaign Although at one point he was 17 percentage points behind Dukakis in the opinion polls, Bush turned it around at his convention and grew continuously stronger. During the election, the Bush campaign sought to portray Gov. Dukakis as unreasonably liberal and 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 a tank around a field. The move ended up being a massive PR blunder, with many mocking Dukakis' Snoopy-like 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. Bush's running mate was Senator Dan Quayle. Quayle was chosen to appeal to a younger generation of Americans. 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. 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. Quayle stated, "I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency." This prompted Dukakis' running mate, Lloyd Bentsen, to respond, "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."• Quayle who was apparently caught off guard responded "That was really uncalled for, Senator," as both applause and boos were heard from the debate audience. 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 Jack Kennedy comments, this did not derail the Bush-Quayle lead, as Quayle had used most of the debate (aside from refuting his lack of experience) to criticize Dukakis as too Liberal while avoided a match-up 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's resignation after she spread rumors of a Bush affair. The most controversial criticism against Dukakis involved his support for a prison furlough program, not begun while he was governor, that resulted in the release of convicted murderer Willie Horton, who committed a rape and assault in Maryland after being furloughed. Dukakis was badly hurt by the Republican "Willie Horton" and "Boston Harbor" campaign ads. Although Dukakis did well in the first presidential debate, Bush seemed to score a triumph in the second debate. 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. Instead of showing anger at the outrage to his wife, Dukakis 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 discussing a loved one's rape and death. Many — including the candidate himself — believe that this, in part, cost Dukakis the election, as his poll numbers dropped from 49% to 42% nationally that night. 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." A CBS poll of debate viewers showed that Bush had won by a two-to-one margin. 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. 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 have 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. He lost the Pacific northwestern states but kept California in the Republican column for the sixth straight time. Bush's success in the electoral college was a function of his overall popular majority. The larger a majority, the more exaggerated effect in the electoral college. Winning over 53% of the popular vote thus gave Bush a much larger percentage of electoral votes. 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--not any great love for Bush himself--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 the "liberal" Dukakis. Bush had essentially no coatails, 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 make gains in congress and strengthen their majorities in Congress. Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote): (a) A West Virginia faithless elector 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.• Among the six vice presidential candidates were Joyce Dattner, Harold Moore•, and somebody with the last name of “Burke”.• Close states See also Notes | ||||||||||
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