Grapevine: Oct. 31, 1988

SUMMER DOLDRUMS; FALL RECRIMINATIONS. Why did the Dukakis campaign wait so long to fire back at the negative ads aired by the Bush campaign in August? Because of campaign manager Susan Estrich’s demanding tastes, say some of the Duke’s admen. “There had to have been at least a thousand scripts in drawers, stacked up all over the place,” says one advertising veteran in the campaign. “They were all sent to Estrich, and she killed every one of them.” By Labor Day, the sources claim, only two lackluster spots — both lifted directly from Dukakis’ convention speech — managed to win Estrich’s approval.