1988 Election -- What Happened?

[mcd1982]

I am reading Jim Wright's book "Balance of Power" and I am APPALLED by the whole Central American mess caused by the Reagan administration!!!

How they heck did Bush get elected in 1988 with all of the illegal wars that he was (should have been) tainted by? The more I read, the more outraged I get!

How is Reagan's presidency not tainted severely by this? Why did VP Bush not suffer b/c of this? Why the heck is he the savior of the conservatives? Probably b/c he lied and cheated, which resulted in deaths, like the best of them.

GRRR!!!

[yankeedem]

1. Same story, earlier verse

Mike Dukakis posing in stupid looking photos (the one in the tank)
Flat out lies on wedge issues like Willie Horton (who was furloughed not under Dukakis laws, but Ed King), Democratic party unwilling to make Poppys role in Iran/Contra an issue.




Edit to add pictures of two Massachusetts Democrats who had STUPID handlers.

[mcd1982]

3. yeah...

I knew of the tank photo & the Horton ad, but my goodness, they don't even compare to the illegality of Iran-Contra & Co.!!!

I can't believe the Democratic Party did not stand up and call a spade a spade!

When will we ever learn our lesson....

[Still_Loves_John]

12. meh..

I dont think you can compare the weird spacesuit photo op with the tank photo op. Every candidate does a couple stupid photo ops, but the reason the tank one was so effective was that it so perfect represented everyone's reservations about Dukakis. Most people never even saw those pictures of Kerry.

[yankeedem]

13. It is a fair comparison because

Kerry and Dukakis had the same type of hamhanded advisors who let him be photographed that way. His image wasn't managed well from day 1, and the "bunny suit" picture just played into it. That it wasn't trumpeted like the Dukakis picture is fortunate, but it still is a symptom of the lack of image making that plagued both of their campaigns.

[NoodleBoy]

2. weak candidates and campaigns in 80 and 84

led to stupidly large Reagan victories, and although Dukakis initally ran a good campaign and was himself a good candidate, his campaign eventually sagged and Reagan came out for Bush heavily, swinging California for Bush, and Bentsen on the ticket couldn't deliver Texas for Dukakis.

[whistle]

4. The same bunch of chicken-hawk monsters have been doing....

...it in Afghanistan and Iraq, probably had a big part in 9-11 and will be disrupting Iran and North Korea within the next 12 months.

[mcd1982]

5. didn't...

Mary Beth Cahill run Mondale's campaign? I'm pretty sure she's run losing presidential races before! Why do we keep using the same darn consultants! To borrow from Shakespeare, we need to kill all the damn consultants!

[dsc]

6. Dukakis had an absolutely brilliant consultant

who he trusted but had to fire him when it was shown he had lied about distributing a video of Biden being a plageurist. That left him with Estrich who wasn't a brilliant consultant and whom he didn't trust. Dukakis rehired his consultant in October and might have won had he had a few more days.

[blm]

7. Even the S&L scandal was covered up by a media screaming, "FLAG BURNING!"

Operatives...probably the DelGaudio brothers...orchestrated flag-burning events by faux leftists that just happened to coincide with Bush1's campaign route. They would show up a week or so early to burn flags in the public squares and Poppy would come later to pronounce his campaign aginst flag-burning.

Sickening, but, between the flag-burning and dirty song lyrics, scandals like the S&L, IranContra, BCCI, and the illegal wars in Central America couldn't get proper media examination.

[Yupster]

8. 1988 was an election Dukakis should have won

He had a lead and Bush went on the attack and Dukakis didn't respond. Flag burning, ACLU membership, Willie Horton, a whole lot of diversionary trivialities became the focus of the campaign because Bush wanted them to be and Dukakis couldn't or wouldn't defend himself.

Some elections are over before they start like Clinton-Dole or Reagan-Mondale, but some could go either way, and 1988 should have gone Dukakis' way.

[AndyTiedye]

9. The Demise of the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE Happened

4995

[mrdmk]

10. He are your answers

The S&L mess not only had the Republicans up to it in their tonsils, but also the Democrats of our time.

<snip>
This allegation set off a series of investigations by the California government, the United States Department of Justice, and the Senate Ethics Committee. The ethics committee's investigation focused on five senators: Alan MacG. Cranston (D-Calif.); Dennis W. DeConcini (D-Ariz.); John H. Glenn Jr. (D-Ohio); John S. McCain III (R-Ariz.); and Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich), who became known as the Keating Five.
<end of snip>
link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_five

As a side note there was also a problem with House Members and Senators floating checks at the Congressional Post Office. The impression that the media was giving at the time was that everybody was crooked.

The BCCI was being investigated by a young Senator named John Kerry. This was being portrayed by media as a Senator Kerry looking for something that was not there and he is wasting every bodies time. This did not help the Democrats at the time. That time would be 1992, thus helping Mr. Bill Clinton to office.

<snip>
In 1992, United States Senators John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown co-authored a report on BCCI which was delivered to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
<end of snip>
link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Credit_and_Commerce_International

Here is a link of the report
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/

The Iran Contra report did not come out until 1993 just in time for Mr. George Bush Sr. to pardon everyone involved just as he was leaving office. Although the scandal was known of in 1988 a) It was very difficult for U.S. citizens to believe b) Up to the time of the report most of the media played it off as muck raking and at the time of the report this was old news that the media more or less gave a cursory passing to.

Here is a link of the report
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/

Further note, Mr. Bush Jr. by executive order has buried all of the executive government papers concerning these matters with an executive order. I forget which one, there were so many.

As a side some of the persons involed in the Iran Contra are employed by Mr. Bush Jr. at this time.

[Still_Loves_John]

11. Umm...

Dukakis was short and no one liked him.

Honestly, I think what happened was, after the bad streak Dem pres candidates seemed to go through in the eighties, they really couldn't get a really good candidate to go for it.

[Hippo_Tron]

14. Dukakis was poorly managed

The tank photo as most will mention is only one of several blunders. At one point I think he led poppy by some 19 points. Poppy also had a good convention performance but that shouldn't have been enough to make up 19 points. Dukakis should've won handidly, his blunders lost it for him.