Free Republic

The only thing worse was Dukakis in a tank.

We wish to extend our best wishes for a “Happy Birthday” to former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who turned 90 last week. Mike Dukakis served as governor of our state from 1975-79 and then again for two terms from 1983-91. He was the Democratic nominee for President in 1988, losing to Republican George H.W. Bush in a contentious election that was marked by immense distortions of Dukakis’s record, including the infamous Willie Horton ad that invoked racial stereotypes and played to the worst instincts of white voters. For those too young to know about Mike Dukakis, we will mention three...

The past few months haven’t been easy sailing for the crew of the S.S. DeSantis, tossed around as they were by senior staff firings, a super PAC that seems to be actively hurting its candidate and the disappearance of nearly every major DeSantis megadonor. Just a few months ago, Republican media outlets feted Ron DeSantis as the future Trump-slayer. Now, the Florida governor’s team can barely keep the lights on. Through it all, DeSantis has remained committed to the idea that if he just focuses on the issues, the voters will eventually come to their senses. But the governor’s bad...

Recently the Democrats have coined the phrase “election deniers” to smear those who worry about our lack of ballot security, as reflected in the 2020 election, by associating them with Holocaust deniers and other cranks. But who are the real election deniers? The Democrats haven’t conceded that a Republican was legitimately elected president since George H. W. Bush carried 40 states in 1988. The RNC put together this 12-minute video of Democratic Party election deniers. It is painful in some respects, but a useful reminder of how unprincipled the Democrats have been for a long time, and how hypocritical they...

This is the story of how the FBI framed four innocent men for murder, destroyed families, and tried to cover it up. It’s also the story of the convergence of John Durham and Robert Mueller: how Durham uncovered the FBI’s crimes and how Robert Mueller’s FBI disputed the innocence of the men the FBI framed. The FBI knocked and Mike Albano opened the door. It was 1983. As a member of the Massachusetts State Parole Board, Albano thought he had been doing his job when he looked into voting to commute the sentence of Peter Limone, who along with Joseph...

Olympia Dukakis, Hollywood’s favorite late bloomer who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in “Moonstruck” — has died at the age of 89. Dukakis, a cousin of former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, died Saturday at her home in New York City. Her brother, Apollo Dukakis, wrote on Facebook, “After many months of failing health she is finally at peace and with her [husband] Louis.” In addition to her scene-stealing turn as Cher’s sardonic Brooklyn mom in 1987’s “Moonstruck,” Dukakis was known for her roles in “Steel Magnolias,” “Look Who’s Talking” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus” among many other films.

I've been calling this presidential election the "Michael Dukakis election of 2020" for months now — all through the summer, when Joe Biden was up by double digits, just like Dukakis. That was before Rudy Giuliani announced he had Hunter Biden's infamous laptop with a treasure trove of emails that appeared to implicate Joe Biden in a massive pay-for-play conspiracy and identify Biden as "the big guy" — a partner in business with the Chinese Communist Party. That was before Hunter Biden's former business partner Tony Bobulinski announced he can prove Biden had a piece of all the dirty deals....

In the second presidential debate between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, moderator Bernie Shaw asked Dukakis a question on violent crime: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” Although the question was awkwardly phrased, and jarring in its tastelessness, Dukakis shouldn’t have been surprised by the subject. Crime was a big issue in 1988 and Dukakis’ opposition to capital punishment was at odds with public opinion. His staff had briefed him on this, but apparently too much.

President Donald Trump slammed Matt Drudge for his website, the Drudge Report, leading with the story of how the president denied he had a 'mini-stroke' that links readers to a video where Trump is purportedly dragging his right leg. 'Drudge didn't support me in 2016, and I hear he doesn't support me now. Maybe that's why he is doing poorly,' Trump tweeted Tuesday evening. 'His Fake News report on Mini-Strokes is incorrect. Possibly thinking about himself, of the other party's "candidate,"' Trump wrote. Trump's comments on Drudge came after his campaign demanded that CNN fire Democratic pundit Joe Lockhart, who...

Michael Dukakis, the former Democratic Massachusetts governor who lost his 1988 White House bid to then-Vice President George H. W. Bush, is warning Joe Biden not to take polls showing him with a double-digit lead over President Trump too seriously. A recent Fox News poll has Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, leading Trump 50-38 nationally as concerns grow over the coronavirus pandemic, racism and unemployment. He also leads Trump by 8.8 percentage points in an average of the latest national polls compiled by Real Clear Politics. By comparison, in late July 1988, a Newsweek/Gallup poll showed Dukakis with a 55-38...

On July 26, 1988, veteran Boston Globe political writer Thomas Oliphant had a story on page A-12, in the newspaper’s “Campaign 88” section: “Dukakis gets bounce from convention.” Laid out next to a picture of then-governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts taking out the trash (of course) at his Brookline home, the story reported the results of a soon-to-be-famous/notorious Newsweek/Gallup poll that showed Dukakis leading his presidential opponent, George H.W. Bush, by a 55-38 percent margin nationwide. Oliphant cited three other polls that also showed Dukakis leading Bush by double-digit margins. “Dukakis has tried to press his new advantage,” Oliphant wrote,...

Sorry for the vanity, my first presidential vote was Reagan in 1980. He was polled a loser v Jimmuh. Is “Dewey beats Truman” the last time the MSM tried to be fair?

Robel Phillipos, 19, was charged last week with lying to investigators looking into the April 15 bombings. The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth student faces a maximum of eight years in prison if convicted. Both sides said in the court motion that they agree to allow Phillipos to be released under strict conditions, including home confinement and monitoring with an electronic bracelet, along with a $100,000 bond.

President Trump’s joke about Michael Dukakis tanked with the former Democratic presidential nominee. Dukakis, who ran against George H.W. Bush, wasn’t happy about Trump mocking him for donning a helmet and riding in a tank during the 1988 campaign. “I want to get into them but then I remember when a man named Dukakis got into a tank,” Trump said to laughter Wednesday during a visit to a tank factory in Lima, Ohio. “The helmet was bigger than he was. That was not good.”

HW’s passing was met with what always greets the passing of a Republican – a rehashing of liberal grievances against them. The most popular liberal grievance against Bush was the famous “Willie Horton ad” in the 1988 campaign. Liberals declared it to be racist, even though nothing about the ad was untrue, and blamed Bush for it, even though it was run by an outside group and not by the Bush campaign or with their blessing. The Bush campaign ran a different ad about the Massachusetts furlough program that did not mention Horton at all. Still, liberals spent the weekend...

Former Democratic presidential nominee Mike Dukakis predicted Tuesday that Democrats would do well on Election Day because they're sick of President Trump, who he said is "disagreeable all the time." "This Pocahontas stuff, what's the matter with this guy?" Dukakis said on Fox News when asked about how Trump picks on Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Think about it. Had Michael Dukakis beat George H.W. Bush in 1988 they would not been a Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama. Democrats would have went with Sharpton or Jackson or Gephardt in 1996 or something.

NEW YORK - After 12 years advocating for abortion rights, Joe Solmonese might have opted for a less divisive field of work. Instead, he is taking over leadership of the largest national gay-rights group at a time when the same-sex marriage debate rivals abortion for volatility and virulence. "My challenge is to talk about why the equality we seek is not just important to our community, but should be important to everyone," Solmonese said. "I have to believe in the optimism and fair-mindedness of the American people." Solmonese was named last week as the new president of the Washington-based Human...

Former Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis said in an interview Friday that President-elect Donald Trump needs to get off Twitter and apologize to Hillary Clinton. "I mean he ought to be ashamed of himself for this kind of stuff, calling her a crook and that kind of nonsense. She's a good person, nothing she did involved breaches of national security," Dukakis said in an interview on WABC radio with Rita Cosby. "She was investigated for God knows how long about Libya, and a Republican-dominated committee exonerated her." Dukakis went on to say that Trump needed to change his behavior and...

In an otherwise observant Politico article, “The Death of Clintonism,” Todd Purdum unwittingly reminded conservative readers why they distrust the major media. For the article, Purdum interviewed Elaine Kamarck, a senior domestic policy adviser under Bill Clinton whose White House Purdum covered as a reporter. Having been around long enough to remember George W. H. Bush’s 1988 campaign against Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, Purdum and Kamarck have no excuse for misrepresenting the campaign’s most decisive ad. The subject of the ad was Dukakis’s support of his state’s insane furlough program for convicted killers as a form of criminal rehabilitation. The...