"We thought of doing a speech on the first 100 days of a Dukakis Administration. We did a speech on regional economic development instead."
-- Christopher Edley, issues director
The morning of the New York primary, Michael Dukakis flew back to Boston to pursue his favorite pastime: governing Massachusetts. As others sought out early exit-poll results, the Governor spent nearly two hours in his Beacon Hill office conferring with Top Advisers Hale Champion and John DeVillars. The gravity of the moment, however, was not lost on DeVillars, who was once Dukakis' student at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. DeVillars later marveled at the incongruity of discussing health insurance with Dukakis as it "dawns on you that a year from now this man may be sitting in the Oval Office talking about national issues." Even then, DeVillars speculates, "you won't see that much change in how he approaches being President from how he's been as Governor."
Would the future flow that naturally from the past? Are the contours of a Dukakis Administration that easy to grasp? Would President Dukakis behave as if the U.S. were an elongated version of the Bay State? Does Dukakis fully understand the magnitude of the difference?
There is scant evidence that Dukakis has a clearly defined vision of his presidency. His disciplined, orderly mind has been understandably fixated on the task at hand -- winning the nomination -- and the rigors of a primary ; campaign leave little time for reflective thinking. On the few occasions that Dukakis has permitted himself to muse aloud about the White House, aides say, there was a puckish glee as he toyed with the ironies of being Governor of all the people. At a recent gubernatorial staff meeting, Dukakis joked that he imagined himself in the Oval Office telling Fred Salvucci, his current transportation secretary, that the ambitious plans to use federal funds to rebuild Boston's central artery would have to be scaled back because "Los Angeles needs the money."
As a candidate, Dukakis has drawn one indelible lesson from his experience as Governor: an almost pathological fear of binding commitments. He was defeated for re-election in 1978 in part because he was forced to renounce a campaign pledge not to raise taxes. As a consequence, Dukakis has become as parsimonious with promises as Jack Benny was with dimes.
It is both startling and politically shrewd that Dukakis, in over a year of campaigning, is on record as making just two unalterable if-elected commitments. Neither of them loomed large on the agenda of any special- interest group, nor did they spark a passionate reaction from the voters. But they are emblematic of the mind-set that Dukakis would bring to the presidency. During a debate before the New Hampshire primary, Dukakis the righteous reformer vowed that the first bill he would send to Congress would be one limiting the influence of political-action committees. Even more characteristic is the carrot that Dukakis dangled before Iowa voters: a promise to hold the first in a series of regional economic-development conferences in Davenport in February 1989.