Letter from America: The Reagan Years (1981-1988)

George H W Bush vs Michael Dukakis

·28 min·2 clips

How did the face of convicted murderer Willie Horton become the defining image of the 1988 presidential campaign?

Alistair Cooke opens the episode by noting the public's prevailing emotion of anger and disgust towards the 1988 presidential campaign, criticizing how both candidates were imprisoned by advertising men. He details the Bush campaign's most effective tactic: the Willie Horton television ad, which used a gruesome exception to Massachusetts's successful prison furlough system to paint Dukakis as soft on crime. Cooke contrasts this with Dukakis's less effective, issue-based ads on topics like drugs and welfare, which often hedged messages state-by-state, like supporting gun control in Maryland but not in Texas. He highlights a key moment from the debates where Dukakis gave a mechanical, unemotional answer to a hypothetical question about his wife being raped and murdered, which Cooke believes cost him votes. Cooke argues the Dukakis campaign's post-mortem focus on advertising technique misses the point. The core problem, he states, is that Dukakis was a decent man caught between his liberal beliefs and the knowledge that those beliefs would not resonate in a nation more conservative than at any time since the 1920s. This split, Cooke explains, affected previous Democratic candidates like McGovern, Mondale, and Carter. He describes a historical political reversal: where Republicans once fought New Deal programs before becoming the 'Me Too' party, the Democrats have now become the 'Me Too' party with no energizing policy. Cooke identifies two decisive factors for Bush's victory beyond campaign tactics. First, economic data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing the success of Reaganomics in creating millions of jobs and revenue. Second, a slump in Democratic voter registration in key states like New York and Texas. The episode then shifts to a detailed description of the American voting process. Cooke narrates his own experience going to a schoolhouse polling station, listing the many offices and propositions on the ballot. He explains how complex state propositions, especially in California, can cause voter fatigue. This leads to an anecdote about the 1916 election, where Charles Evans Hughes went to bed believing he was president only to learn California's results had tipped the election to Woodrow Wilson. Cooke concludes by discussing California's Proposition 103, a ballot measure to cut auto insurance rates by 20%, which caused immediate turmoil with insurance companies threatening to withdraw, overshadowing post-election discussion of the deficit.

As heard by us

A campaign story built from ads, party labels, hard numbers, and a dry supermarket coda.

Alastair Cooke frames George H W Bush and Michael Dukakis through a campaign shaped less by excitement than by anger, disgust, and the force of advertising.

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Why you'd press play

You get campaign politics stripped down to ads, polling, and one supermarket coda.

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