| Former governor of Massachussetts and 1988 Democratic candidate for president.
Running against incumbent vice president George Bush, he reached his high-water
mark in the convention bounce following the Democratic National Convention, with a
double-digit lead over Bush.
Bush, though, pulled off a comeback as popular outgoing two-term President Ronald
Reagan helped keep him afloat until Bush could find an issue on which to hammer
Dukakis. That issue was crime, as symbolized by Willie Horton, a convicted
murderer paroled under Massachussetts's fairly liberal parole laws, who then
proceeded to kill again as soon as he was released from prison. Bush used this
situation to scare people and successfully paint Dukakis as an out of touch
liberal, and spanked Dukakis in November. | 
