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Fourteen years before an antsy convicted killer named Willie Horton torpedoed Gov. Michael S. Dukakis’ presidential hopes, Joseph Fournier was just an earnest kid working after school to save money for his first car. The media perversely tagged Horton “America’s Most Famous Convict” in 1988, “but nobody knows my brother,” former state Rep. Donna Fournier Cuomo resigned herself to believe.

THE GRATING COMMUNICATOR October 21, 2009 The Obama administration has attacked Fox News in order to prevent government corruption stories broken on Fox from bleeding into the other media, which are all-consumed with daily updates on Levi Johnston's Playgirl spread and Carrie Prejean's breast implants. That's understandable. But I think the administration should have picked someone other than David Axelrod to deliver the claim that Fox News is "not really news," inasmuch as Axelrod was behind the leak of scurrilous allegations in Jack Ryan's sealed divorce papers when he was running for a Senate seat against Obama. Talk about vicious...

The final day of Michael Dukakis’ final—and most improbable, unconventional and just plain bizarre—campaign for political office began on a bad note Wednesday morning. Influential Democrats in Washington, reacting to The Boston Globe’s endorsement of Dukakis for an interim Senate appointment a day earlier, had fought back by telling The New York Times that the 75-year-old former governor “was out of the running and would not be named” by Governor Deval Patrick to replace Ted Kennedy, as the paper reported it. Instead, The Times and other national outlets suggested that Patrick was likely to settle on Paul G. Kirk, a...

Massachusetts would be well-served if the law is changed to allow the governor to appoint an interim senator while the election of a successor proceeds and thus the state will not lose a voice as critical legislation comes before Congress. There would be no better and deserving choice for the interim position than former Gov. Mike Dukakis. - Richard Rust, Boston

Health Reform: If Democrats in Washington think their health care reform with a public option is a good thing, why have they exempted themselves from it? Why isn't what's good for their constituents good for them?During ABC's June 24 infomercial for government-run health care broadcast from the White House, President Obama was asked if he and his family would abide by the restrictions and limitations that came with his proposed reforms. In what Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com called "Obama's Michael Dukakis moment," President Obama refused to make such a pledge and confessed that if "it's my family member, if it's...

Barack Obama got ABC to move their news division into the White House in order to make the big pitch for his egalitarian, everyone-gets-treated-equally ObamaCare push. Instead, Obama fumbled into a Michael Dukakis moment that exposed him as a hypocrite. ABC itself leads with Obama’s response that he wouldn’t stay within his own plan for his family:

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/25/obamas-michael-dukakis-moment/ Barack Obama got ABC to move their news division into the White House in order to make the big pitch for his egalitarian, everyone-gets-treated-equally ObamaCare push. Instead, Obama fumbled into a Michael Dukakis moment that exposed him as a hypocrite. ABC itself leads with Obama’s response that he wouldn’t stay within his own plan for his family:

BOSTON — Former Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas Finneran has enlisted the help of four former governors in his bid to get a pardon from President Bush on an obstruction of justice conviction. The Boston Globe reports Friday that Finneran submitted an application for a presidential pardon last month. The four governors — Democrat Michael Dukakis and Republicans William Weld, Paul Cellucci, and Jane Swift — followed with a letter of support. In the letter, obtained by the newspaper, the governors says Finneran has been severely punished and has "learned the error of the episode." Finneran, currently a radio talk show...

Barack Obama was no better a candidate than Michael Dukakis. That sentence sounds absurd, right? Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and went on to win the highest Democratic vote percentage since 1964. Dukakis, by contrast, barely emerged from a primary field of--at least when their 1988 political statures are compared to Clinton's in 2008--relative minnows, and then went on to squander an enormous polling advantage in the general election. Surely, Obama and Dukakis are not comparable in terms of their ability as campaigners. However, as I discuss in the extended entry, virtually all of Obama's, and really all...

subtitle: sorry, auntie. Now get under the bus.From the perky Katie interview:Couric: YOU HAVE AN AUNT WHO’S BEEN LIVING IN THIS COUNTRY APPARENTLY ILLEGALLY, AND YOUR CAMPAIGN SAYS ANY AND ALL APPROPRIATE LAWS SHOULD BE FOLLOWED. SO WOULD YOU SUPPORT HER BEING DEPORTED TO KENYA? Sen. Obama: If she is violating laws those laws have to be obeyed. We’re a nation of laws. Obviously that doesn’t lessen my concern for her, I haven’t been able to be in touch with her. But I’m a strong believer you have to obey the law.

Former Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis said Friday that it was "pretty pathetic" of Sen. John McCain to choose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate and questioned the Republican candidate's use of a Karl Rove protege to run his campaign. In an online chat with The Washington Times, Mr. Dukakis, former Massachusetts governor and now a professor at Northeastern University, said that's just one sign Mr. McCain has changed for the worse since his failed 2000 presidential campaign. "His selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate was, I thought, pretty pathetic. I made a lot of mistakes...

When John McCain’s campaign made it clear over the weekend that their stretch-run strategy would lean heavily on raising questions about Barack Obama’s personal history and past “associations,” Obama’s communications director provided a simple, almost indifferent reaction to The Washington Post: “This isn’t 1988.” Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee whose campaign was eviscerated that year by tactics ripped from the same playbook from which Mr. McCain now seems intent on borrowing, tends to agree. “Well, it happens every time,” the former Massachusetts governor said in an interview on the afternoon of Oct. 6 in his college office. “They’re desperate,...

Former Gov. Michael Dukakis said Monday that John McCain's presidential campaign is using the same race-based tactics that were used against him in the 1988 presidential run...

Former Gov. Michael Dukakis said Monday that John McCain's presidential campaign is using the same race-based tactics that were used against him in his 1988 presidential run. The Brookline Democrat was referring to a recent McCain ad that claimed Democratic nominee Barack Obama received economic advice from Franklin Raines, the former CEO of the recently bailed out mortgage lender Fannie Mae. The ad features images of Raines and Obama, two African Americans, and then an image of an elderly white woman.

Barack Obama is slumping. Poll numbers are down. Enthusiasm is down. Democrats, once again, are freaking. So, we asked a few folks, from different walks of life, to offer their opinion on what Obama should do to improve his standing. Here's what former Massachusetts Governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis had to say: On campaigning: "I think this thing is going to be won in the field, with basic grassroots organizing ... and I don't think McCain has anything out there. Obama is attempting to do that more thoroughly and better, in more states, than I think anybody...

Former U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis says he supports Barack Obama for president. Dukakis, 75, now a professor at Northeastern University in Boston, lost to George H.W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. Born to a Greek immigrant family, Dukakis received his law degree from Harvard University. After serving as governor of Massachusetts, he became the Democratic Party`s nominee for president in 1988. Though he enjoyed high popularity until his nomination, he lost the election due to mainly a smear campaign by the Republicans. The Dong-A Ilbo held a phone interview with Dukakis about his experience 20 years ago....

According to Gallup, Barack Obama is now leading the race for president with his highest share of support to date: According to a Gallup poll published in the NYT, 1988: Fifty-five percent of the 948 registered voters interviewed in the poll said they preferred to see Mr. Dukakis win the 1988 Presidential election, while 38 percent said they preferred to see Mr. Bush win.

“Well, Mr. Jones,” said the HR director. “You seem to have done well in school. You have a good attendance record. When did you graduate high school?” “Two years ago, in 2006,” Mr. Jones replied. “I’m 20 years old.” “I’m having a hard time understanding why you haven’t been able to find a job in two years since graduating high school, Mr. Jones,” the interviewer confessed. Mr. Jones got a glum look on his face. But he was determined not to let this situation defeat him yet again. “Well, sir, just a string of bad luck, I guess,” he said....

About 850 people attended the fund-raiser, which cost between $1,000 and $4,600 per ticket. Among those, 250 also ate dinner with Obama - for $15,000 per ticket or $28,500 per couple. Guests began dinner with heaping helpings of field greens, heirloom lettuces, candied hazelnuts and port-soaked currants tossed with a sherry Dijon vinaigrette. The main course: cinnamon-and-red-wine-braised short ribs and roasted porcini-crusted sea bass, plus a trio of potato confit, and hand-rolled gnocchi with wild mushrooms and a vegetable bouquet. Guests washed down that sumptuous repast with a perky 2004 Cloudy Bay Sauvingnon Blanc “Te Koko” and an impertinent 2004...

"This election isn't about ideology, it's about competence." -- Michael Dukakis, 1988 "The choice in this election is not between left or right, it's not between liberal or conservative, it's between the past and the future." -- Barack Obama, 2008 Why? Why do liberals who capture their party's presidential nomination say things like this? Why are they so afraid to say, "I'm an out and out card-carrying liberal and I'm proud of it!" Why do they try and hide their liberalism behind "competence" and screeds about "the past and the future"? There is a reason. There are lots of reasons,...

Dukakis calls for end to Electoral College Dave Wedge By Dave Wedge Tuesday, July 8, 2008 Calling it “critically important” to eliminate the Electoral College system, former Bay State Gov. Michael Dukakis called on lawmakers to join a growing number of states supporting a switch to a national popular vote to elect the president. “I think it is high time we got rid of the Electoral College and elected our presidents the way we elect every other elected official in the country - by a vote of the people,” Dukakis wrote in a letter e-mailed to state lawmakers yesterday. “The...

Sen. Barack Obama did patriotism yesterday, today it is faith and by the end of the day both speeches will have been done in back-to-back states that swing: Missouri and Ohio. The Obama campaign said the Illinois senator plans to go to Zanesville, located in eastern Ohio, to visit a church program that provides food and clothing assistance to those in need.

Shades of Dukakis, Obama up 15 THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW BY: Salena Zito In May of 1988 after all of the Democratic primaries ended presumptive nominee Michael Dukakis enjoyed a 54 to 38 percent lead over then Ronald Reagan wing man George H.W. Bush. H.W. went on to win in that November handily This evening a new Newsweek poll shows Obama having a giant lead, from 51 percent to 36 percent, over McCain among registered voters across the country. Obama got his bounce, Dukakis style.

Obama's quandary: Wear a helmet, look dumb or be a role model? No image affected Michael Dukakis' 1988 campaign more than his infamous ride in the tank. This image is still funny. Sure, there's world wars and toxic pollution and corruption and Social Security reform and a few other things like trillions of dollars in debt to worry about. But before getting to those easy issues, politicians who want to be chief executives must first get elected. And to do that they must decide if they're going to wear funny hats. It's the bane of most big-time campaigns. And why...

LOS ANGELES — It is a thought that sends shivers down the backs of Democrats, a name that brings to mind memories of an election lost that might have been won, against a war hero once referred to in headlines as a “wimp” who won not so much by his own strengths but because of the skill of his operatives in painting his lesser-known opponent as an out of touch “liberal” who refused to salute the flag or admit his mistakes, not to mention his supposedly unpatriotic wife. Could Obama be another Dukakis? It isn’t just die-hard Clinton supporters who...

Twenty years ago it was Mike Dukakis who broke out of the Democratic pack to capture the presidential nomination. This cycle, Dukakis believes -- like many other observers in the party -- that Barack Obama is poised to do the same. "If you were to say to me, 'If you were a betting guy, Dukakis, what do you think?' I'd say he's going to get the nomination within the next month or so," said Dukakis, who is publicly neutral in the race. (His wife, Kitty, has contributed money to Obama.) Dukakis is quick to add that politics -- as the...

The Massachusetts Democratic primary, along with nearly two dozen other primaries and caucuses, was held on Feb. 5. Hillary Clinton won it by 15 points, one of her best showings anywhere this year, and Michael Dukakis voted in it—but he won’t say for whom. [SNIP] Mr. Dukakis has maintained an adamantly neutral public stance throughout the campaign, hoping instead to sell both candidates and their campaigns on the need for assembling a massive grassroots organizing effort—a captain and six block leaders in all 200,000 precincts in the country—for the fall. But he also said that Barack Obama will probably be...

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft. Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur. Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of...

History, in Marx's famous dictum, tends to repeat itself: the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. So what do you call it the third time around? A bad sitcom? A bad marriage? A bad dream? All three of those seem like viable ways of describing the Democratic Party's current predicament, locked in an endless and self-destructive struggle with itself, like a would-be Buddhist penitent unable to atone for eons' worth of bad karma. Even in the annals of Democratic ritual suicide, the 2008 campaign is something special: It's not just that the protracted and painful nomination...

Days after he'd been nominated by Democrats for president in the summer of 1988, while enjoying a double-digit lead in the polls, Michael Dukakis took what he fancied as a Trumanesque whistle-stop train tour. The train dipped into the northeastern corner of Arkansas for one quick depot stop. It wasn't clear why. Maybe he and his advisers surmised as follows: Since Dukakis's National Governors Association pal -- a fellow named Clinton -- was the governor there, then Dukakis might have a shot at those six Southern electoral votes. He didn't. I was plopped on this train and granted an interview...

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's advocacy for the release of convicted rapist Wayne DuMond and DuMond's subsequent rapes and murders following his release should give every Republican pause before they vote for a candidate with a Mike Dukakis-problem. Watch the full video here. More information on this twisted case can be found here: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTcyMTM5YzRiMzVjMjA3MGEwMjUwM2Y3NGJiMzM1YWY=&w=MA== http://lesliecarbone.blogspot.com/2007/11/governor-and-murderer.html http://lesliecarbone.blogspot.com/2007/12/dear-wayne.html

ROCHESTER, N.H. - A man wearing what looked like a bomb beneath his sweater and tie walked into Hillary Clinton's campaign office yesterday, taking three staff members, a volunteer, and an infant hostage, forcing the closure of the senator's campaign offices throughout Iowa and New Hampshire, and paralyzing this small city on the Maine border, authorities said. ...Eisenberg, formerly known as Ralph E. Woodward Jr., served time at Bridgewater State Hospital and MCI-Concord, according to court records. In 2002, he filed a lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court against Bernard Cardinal Law, in Law's capacity as Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston,...

Michael Dukakis has seen this script before: a Republican administration besieged by scandal and running out the clock on its second term, while wide-eyed Democrats confidently lick their chops, knowing there’s no way in hell voters will reward the G.O.P. with four more years in the White House. It was around this very moment 20 years ago, the summer when Oliver North told Congress he was “authorized to do everything that I did” and Reagan fatigue took hold, that Mr. Dukakis, then the 53-year-old governor of Massachusetts, emerged at the head of a crowded Democratic presidential pack. By the time...

Dukakis granted pardon to Brown By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI New Hampshire Union Leader Staff 9 hours, 57 minutes ago BOSTON – The convicted New Hampshire tax evader now at the center of a standoff for his refusal to surrender and serve a 63-month federal prison term won a pardon in 1976 from then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis for an earlier criminal conviction. Edward L. Brown, 64, who remains holed up in his Plainfield, N.H., compound with his wife, Elaine, was found guilty in 1960 of assault and armed robbery in Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge and later sentenced to state prison,...

You’ve heard of the “tax-anything-that-moves” crowd? Well they were out in full force at the State House yesterday - under the able direction of their movement’s founding father, former Gov. Michael Dukakis, who is establishing his place as the Jimmy Carter of ex-Bay State governors. Dukakis and a group of Democratic lawmakers were there to lobby for a bill that would finance billions in commuter rail expansion projects by taxing - you guessed it! - just about anything that moves. Literally. For starters there’d be a new tax on all vehicles - a “greenhouse gas reduction fee” - tied to...

Chris Matthews Calls Hillary Clinton ‘Dukakis in a Dress’ Posted by Noel Sheppard on January 21, 2007 - 21:53. With the love-fest that is currently going on over Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois), it is certainly no surprise when a group of mainstream media members gets together to discuss Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings. Yet, it is quite odd to hear someone like Chris Matthews state that the current frontrunner for the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination – and a former first lady – is a female incarnation of one of the biggest left-wing failures in decades (video available here courtesy of our friend...

by Mark Finkelstein September 13, 2006 - 10:21 Was Maureen Dowd kidding about having called Tim Russert to ask if VP Cheney washed his hands after his Meet the Press appearance this Sunday? By all indications she was not, making one fear the Times columnist is slipping ever deeper into Dowd Derangement Syndrome. Dowd writes in her pay-to-read column of today, Vice Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work, "I called Tim Russert to ask if Dick Cheney had washed his hands after their interview on Sunday. Any sort of scrubbing, I wondered? Antiseptic wipe, Purell, quick shower on the...

Governor Michael S. Dukakis, whose administration hired Big Dig manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, yesterday attributed problems on the huge construction project to later administrations. Dukakis, the last Democrat to hold the Massachusetts governor's office, told a television interviewer last night that he had urged Governor William F. Weld, a Republican, to ask Frederick P. Salvucci, transportation secretary under Dukakis, "to stay on and run that project for you." "Well, he didn't do that," Dukakis said of Weld on WGBH's "Greater Boston." "So we've had a series of people over there who aren't bad people," Dukakis said, "but they didn't have anywhere...

Democrats seek to curb attack ads... Dukakis heads watchdog panel... The state Democratic Party has created a four-member panel, headed by former governor Michael S. Dukakis, that will review campaign advertisements and publicly rebuke candidates who use negative attacks. Party chairman Philip W. Johnston created the panel and will serve on it, along with Dukakis and Cameron F. Kerry, brother of US Senator John F. Kerry; and Katherine M. Clark of Melrose, a former state Senate candidate who is chairing a statewide campaign effort for the Democratic Party. Johnston, elected party chairman in 2000, said he believes that a major...

On Wednesday, May 24, the Massachusetts Senate is scheduled to vote on several amendments to existing legislation. Two issues are of particular importance. 1. Under exsiting law, illegal immigrants in Massachusetts are given priority to "public assistance" over all others. Under existing law, illegal immigrants are given phoney social security numbers (started by former Gov. and presidential candidate Mike Dukakis) and get preference in getting free housing over citizens, including veterans. That's right. The Marxists running the State House have created laws that make Homeless vets in Massachusetts wait behind illegals in getting public housing and housing assistance. 2. Under...

BRITONS have been warned: Stay away from riot-torn Paris. The Foreign Office says the French capital — which has been rocked by violent demos — is too dangerous. Protests against a new employment law have erupted into riots, with fierce fighting in the shadow of famous tourist spots like the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral. Cars have been set alight, shops looted and gangs of youths and masked men swinging baseball bats and wooden planks have had running battles with riot police who have used water cannon and tear gas.The Foreign Office alert is a huge blow to France,...

MIDI - FOREVER IN BLUE JEANS Chris Matthews says no way...Chris Matthews says no way Chrissy says...that Hillary will never be the prez Some Democrats have certainly concurred...and Chrissy calls her Dukakis in a dress Hillary...will stop at nothing...everyone agrees She'll be triangulating, that's for sure...and Chrissy calls her Dukakis in a dress Bodies dead...she brings dread...what more needs to be said Look at her face with that demonic smile Get in her way...and you will pay Just you wait for those FBI files Chrissy says...that Hillary will never be the prez Some Democrats have certainly concurred...and Chrissy calls...

by Mark Finkelstein March 6, 2006 Don't expect to see Chris Matthews and Hillary Clinton dining tête à tête any time soon. On this evening's Hardball, he described her as "Dukakis in a dress." The comment arose in the course of his interview of House Majority Leader John Boehner. The topic was McCain. Boehner, perhaps with a grain of reluctance, labelled McCain a "good guy." But Boehner cut him short when Matthews floated a scenario in which the GOP would turn to McCain as its candidate "if you see HIllary coming, if it looks like she's got up a head...

<p>FOR THE second year in a row...the population of Massachusetts has shrunk.</p> <p>It was one of only three states to end the year with fewer people than it had at the start -- New York and Rhode Island were the others -- and the only one to do so for the second year running.</p>

"... an envelope ... caught his eye... The return address read, "Upton Sinclair..." "... I am here trying to make plain my own part in the story." "The story was "Boston," Sinclair's ... condemnation of the trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, Italian immigrants accused of killing two men in the robbery of a Massachusetts shoe factory..." "... Sinclair met with ... the men's attorney..." "..."I begged him to tell me the full truth," Sinclair wrote. " … He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a...

Democrat Michael Dukakis, riding a wave of positive publicity from the convention that nominated him for president last week, led Vice President George Bush by 17 points in a Gallup poll released Tuesday. Dukakis drew 54 percent support to 37 percent for Bush in the survey, conducted among 1,001 registered voters Friday through Sunday, radio station WEEI in Boston, one of the poll's sponsors, reported. A Gallup poll for Newsweek on Thursday and Friday had the same spread, with 55 percent for Dukakis and 38 percent for Republican nominee-to-be Bush. The Democratic National Convention ended Thursday with a well-received acceptance...

Like many women of a certain age, I have a bad habit, first learned in the 1960s and '70s. Whenever I'm in a professional setting, I count the number of women in the room. These days there are occasions when I don't have enough fingers and toes to do the job. Which brings me to the present, and an ugly little spat that is roiling the waters of opinion journalism in the same way that Lawrence Summers's comments about the dearth of women in math and science rocketed through the academy. Op-ed pages, the accepted wisdom insists, don't carry enough...

Fugitive murderer returns to Mass. after 20 years on the lam By DENISE LAVOIE AP Legal Affairs Writer March 24, 2005 Dottie Johnson lobbied for years to keep the man convicted of killing her 21-year-old cousin from gaining his freedom. Now, two decades after he escaped from a Massachusetts prison and disappeared, Norman A. Porter Jr. is back in custody. "It's been a very emotional thing," she said, recalling the almost 45 years since her cousin, John "Jackie" Pigott, was shot to death in a robbery at the Saugus retail store where he worked. Johnson was 13 then. "We hope...

In Chicago, he is one of the city's most beloved antiwar poets, an author of two books and a congregation leader at a West Side church. But in Massachusetts, he is notorious for executing a clerk at a Saugus clothing store in 1960, aiding in the murder of a Middlesex County jailer in 1961, and then escaping from a Norfolk County correction center in 1985.

I have rarely been this royally ticked off. However, nothing prepared me for the statements of Fox News analyst and law professor Susan Estrich calling for a feminist campaign against the Los Angeles Times. Ms. Estrich's grievance is that the newspaper has failed to publish enough articles by women (like her own syndicated column) on its editorial page. Described in the press as "belligerent" and "semiliterate," Ms. Estrich's tirades became increasing unhinged after it became clear that Mr. Kinsley would not yield to her ultimatums. Indeed, Ms. Estrich went to all caps in offering Mr. Kinsley "ONE MORE CHANCE BEFORE...