Liberté
Jr. Member
Posts: 707
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« on: May 18, 2011, 06:26:14 PM » |
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The biggest thing people are missing here is this: what constituency within the Democratic Party backed Dukakis?
And the problem is that I can't think of one. Whose interests did he represent? He governed not unlike Bill Clinton did in Arkansas, actually: he attacked the bureaucratic Metropolitan District Commission, which earned him the ire of government employees; his "Massachusetts Miracle" was largely the product of nominal state income tax cuts and a slight increase on the sales tax; and, aside from his moderate renovation of Boston's public transit system, he engaged in no specular public works projects.
All this is to say that Dukakis was a neoliberal, a 'centrist', like Bill Clinton four years later but with half the charm. And unlike Clinton, he could not especially appeal to New Democrats or Blue Dogs, as he had no southern bonafides at all. A man can't get elected without someone backing him.
Nobody backed poor Dukakis.
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