{"id":16825,"date":"2012-09-19T18:56:06","date_gmt":"2012-09-19T18:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2012\/09\/19\/political-science-students-hear-guest-lecture-by-ex-gov-dukakis\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T15:09:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T19:09:58","slug":"political-science-students-hear-guest-lecture-by-ex-gov-dukakis","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2012\/09\/19\/political-science-students-hear-guest-lecture-by-ex-gov-dukakis\/","title":{"rendered":"Political Science students hear guest lecture by ex-Gov. Dukakis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><html><body><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Michael_Dukakis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Michael Dukakis<\/a>, former Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, offered his insider&rsquo;s perspectives to a group of Clark students on Sept. 17 during a frank discussion about life in public office, his own and current election strategies &ndash; both winning and losing &ndash; some recent political history, and today&rsquo;s political climate.<\/p>\n<p>Dukakis discussed his political journey from winning the presidency of his third-grade class in Brookline to ringing doorbells from precinct to precinct to riding the T each day to the State House. He talked about the exhilaration of public life and the struggle to preserve a close-knit family life. With candor and humor, he recalled his presidential bid and the stunning post-convention lead that was quickly swallowed by a historic negative ad campaign that continues to influence election tactics today. He called his refusal to address the attacks &ldquo;the dumbest mistake I ever made. I ran a lousy last part of my campaign. One of my dumbest decisions was to not respond to the Bush attack campaign.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/offices\/mosakowski-institute\">Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise<\/a>&nbsp;Director James R. Gomes arranged for Dukakis to speak with students taking his course, &ldquo;The American Presidency.&rdquo; Other&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.clarku.edu\/departments\/politicalscience\/\">political science<\/a>&nbsp;students also had the opportunity to attend the class, which was moved to the Grace Conference Room to accommodate the larger audience.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Mike Dukakis is one of our most thoughtful practitioners and observers of American politics,&rdquo; Gomes said. &ldquo;The students in my Presidency class really enjoyed hearing from someone who had actually lived the intense experience of running for president.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Dukakis spent the last part of his hour-long talk answering questions from the students.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of Dukakis&rsquo;s comments:<\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;For better or worse &ndash; and I&rsquo;m not sure it&rsquo;s better &ndash; negative campaigns are commonplace.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;The Electoral College should have been abolished 100 years ago.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;Where in the Constitution does it say that money is free speech?&rdquo;<\/em>&nbsp;<em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got a country that&rsquo;s pretty badly divided.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;Obama proved that grass-roots, precinct organizing in a presidential campaign works.&rdquo;<\/em>&nbsp;<em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a tight race. Anyone can win.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;There is nothing inherently corruptible about public service. Public service is good. It offers a real opportunity for changing the world.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;Believe me, folks. Good people working together can change things.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The daily&nbsp;<em>Worcester Telegram &amp; Gazette<\/em>&nbsp;published a report on the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegram.com\/article\/20120918\/NEWS\/109189840\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dukakis talk at Clark<\/a>.<\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Dukakis, former Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, offered his insider&rsquo;s perspectives to a group of Clark students on Sept. 17 during a frank discussion about life in public office, his own and current election strategies &ndash; both winning and losing &ndash; some recent political history, and today&rsquo;s political climate. Dukakis discussed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"#525250","story_headerImg":-1,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"displayed_author":[324],"featured":[],"topic":[264],"class_list":["post-16825","story","type-story","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized","displayed_author-clark-news-and-media-relations","topic-political-science"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Political Science students hear guest lecture by ex-Gov. Dukakis | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2012\/09\/19\/political-science-students-hear-guest-lecture-by-ex-gov-dukakis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Political Science students hear guest lecture by ex-Gov. Dukakis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Michael Dukakis, former Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, offered his insider&rsquo;s perspectives to a group of Clark students on Sept. 17 during a frank discussion about life in public office, his own and current election strategies &ndash; both winning and losing &ndash; some recent political history, and today&rsquo;s political climate. 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