Does Barack Obama Equal Michael Dukakis?

One of the comparisons-of-the-week now making the rounds via pundits, Clinton supporters, Republicans, bloggers and talking (and screaming) radio and TV heads is that Democratic Senator Barack Obama could prove to be another Michael Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor defeated by the first George Bush in his Presidential race. A fair comparison or not? Dukakis’ former campaign manager has some thoughts.

Dukakis, in case you forget, went into the race favored to win but after the Republicans got through defining him, and he ran a boring slow-to-respond campaign where he often seemed more like he was running for Accountant In Chief than Commander in Chief — and made the huge mistake of being filmed riding in a tank. He was compared to looking like Snoopy. And he was toast. Without butter or jam.

His former campaign manager Susan Estrich says the Obama-Dukakis comparison doesn’t quite fit — unless Obama lets it:

I was there. Mike Dukakis was (and is) a friend of mine. And so I can say that, while the danger is certainly worth recognizing, Barack Obama is no Mike Dukakis. Or at least he doesn’t have to be.

There is no question that the Republicans will try to do to Obama what they did to Dukakis: paint him as a liberal, out of touch with the values of average (white) Americans, so far left that he has left America.

The ammunition is there, she writes, but Obama has to realize that negative charges can’t just be left out there to fester. They do damage and must be answered quickly.

Still, even if you take all of the things the GOP could try to run against Obama and put them together, she says, there is one factor in Obama’s favor:

There will be much talk in coming weeks, if and when Obama does secure the nomination, of how this fight against Clinton has weakened him. I see it differently. I think it has strengthened him, by preparing him for what’s to come, and teaching him to deal with the mud that is sure to be thrown in his direction.

But the most important difference between Obama and Dukakis has absolutely nothing to do with the two men, or their primary opponents, or the issues that did or did not get raised. It’s the difference between where the country was then, and where it is now.

In June 1988, a majority of Americans thought the country was on the right track. Although the wrong track numbers had been higher earlier in the year, by the summer they turned around. Americans were pleased with the direction of the country. Today, the equivalent numbers are 80% wrong track. Ask any pollster and they’ll tell you that there is no better indication of which party will win an election than the right track-wrong track numbers. This should be a Democratic year. Obama, if he is the candidate, will face a negative machine. But in the end, that machine cannot change the way people feel about the direction the country is heading, or the party that is responsible for it.

That continues to be GOP presumptive nominee John McCain’s problem — and partly explains why no matter how bleak it may seem, Hillary and Bill Clinton are hanging in there as long as they can. Unless someone tries to lose — and some could argue that as a political party the Democrat parties factions and timid superdelegates seem to be trying to do just that — they would have to work to close the huge openings they have this year to re-take the White House and both houses of Congress.

Because this year the Democratic Presidential nomination is truly worth something — if the person who gets it is willing to fight back quickly and strongly when he/she gets it.