(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
DeSantis fighter jet ad conjures 1988 Dukakis tank debacle [1]
['Gillian Brockell']
Date: 2022-08-23
Listen 5 min Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share
Clearly, what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was going for was a comparison to Tom Cruise. Hence the “Top Gov” label at the beginning of his latest political ad, which resembles that of Cruise’s “Top Gun” movies, and the slo-mo shots of the Republican governor zipping up a flight suit over an energetic guitar music track. DeSantis “briefs” an out-of-view team — presumably Florida voters — about the “rules of engagement” for “dogfighting” with the “corporate media.” At one point, he sits in the cockpit of what appears to be a fighter jet, flight helmet on, and says, “Alright, ladies and gentlemen.”
What are DeSantis and his team getting instead? Comparisons to Michael Dukakis, the Massachusetts governor who made one of the most-mocked campaign photo ops in modern political history while running for president in 1988.
It was Sept. 13, 1988, less than two months before Americans would go to the polls and select Dukakis, a Democrat, or his GOP rival, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, to lead the free world. Dukakis had enjoyed a huge lead over the summer, but the Bush campaign’s attack ads on Dukakis’s crime policies had done damage. Now the Bush campaign was saying Dukakis wanted to cut military spending.
Advertisement
Bush, a decorated pilot in World War II, joked at a campaign stop that Dukakis “thinks a naval exercise is something you find in Jane Fonda’s workout book.”
It was true that Dukakis was against the so-called Star Wars program, an expensive missile defense system to protect the United States from nuclear attack. He predicted — rightly, it turned out — that future wars would be fought in deserts and the U.S. military should instead invest in tanks and helicopters, according to Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania professor, speaking in a 2016 PBS documentary about the campaign.
So, seeking to bolster his national security chops, Dukakis gave a speech at an M1 Abrams tank manufacturing plant in Sterling Heights, Mich.
“Somebody had the not great idea of putting my dad in a tank,” said John Dukakis, the candidate’s son, in the documentary. “With a helmet, of course, because you can’t ride a tank without a helmet.”
The footage of the not-so-tough politician popping out of a tank, smiling in military gear, his name taped to the top of the helmet, went what we would now call “viral.” Reporters can be heard laughing hysterically. ABC News legend Sam Donaldson — who a Dukakis aide told Politico was doubled over laughing — can be heard jovially shouting, “Come out! Put 'em up!”
Advertisement
“We saw it on the nightly news and knew it was a bad look,” John Dukakis remembered.
“He looks like Mickey Mouse,” Jamieson said. “It doesn’t look like something a presidential candidate would do.”
The Bush campaign took advantage, airing a devastating campaign ad playing the footage while a narrator says, “Michael Dukakis is opposed to virtually every defense system we’ve developed ... and now he wants to be our commander in chief. America can’t afford that risk.”
Soon, a poll found that 25 percent of voters said they were less likely to vote for Dukakis because of tank photo, according to Politico. Worse still, Dukakis refused to “get in the sandbox” or “throw mudpies,” as he called it, by fighting back against the Bush campaign, a decision he later said he regretted. His campaign went into a free fall.
Advertisement
In the end, he won only 10 states. Bush beat him handily — though, it should be noted, Dukakis still performed better than his immediate predecessors, 1984 Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale, and in 1980, then-President Jimmy Carter.
So what to make of DeSantis — who is widely believed to have presidential aspirations of his own — seeming to emulate one of the biggest backfires in politics, right down to the “Top Gov” sticker smacked across the governor’s helmet?
Joke tweets, of course.
A brief history of candidates looking like total dorks.
Dukakis in a tank.
DeSantis in a plane. pic.twitter.com/3jeb8kloRS — Jason Selvig (@jasonselvig) August 23, 2022
First as tragedy, then as farce pic.twitter.com/cXxLN8BLES — Kevin Gannon (@TheTattooedProf) August 23, 2022
In DeSantis’s defense, the ad does seem to be aiming for comedy, where Dukakis definitely was not. Plus, DeSantis served in the military and is still in the Navy Reserve, though he serves as a military lawyer, not a fighter pilot. And in small type at the end of the ad reads the notice: “The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense visual information does not imply or constitute DOD endorsement.”
Advertisement
Still, Dukakis served in the military, too, though not as a tank operator, and that didn’t matter in the end.
Now retired and probably making turkey stock at his home in Brookline, Mass., Dukakis has been followed by the tank gaffe for decades. In 2008, he told U.S. News & World Report that when he arrives any place, people still ask him if he got there by tank.
“I always respond by saying, ‘No, and I’ve never thrown up all over the Japanese prime minister,’” he said, taking a dig at one of Bush’s more vulnerable moments.
correction A previous version of this story incorrectly stated DeSantis was a judge advocate general. He is a military lawyer for the Navy Reserve Judge Advocate General Corps.
GiftOutline Gift Article
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/23/desantis-dukakis-fighter-jet-tank/
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
