The Morning After

I WANTED TO bleed him," said a thoroughly disgruntled former Massachusetts state representative last Wednesday morning, in explaining his vote for Edward J. King, former Massport director, now known as The Man Who Dumped the Duke.

"Voting for Barbara Ackermann just wouldn't have been enough," the former state rep said. "I wanted to bleed Dukakis." He wasn't alone.

Although the Today Show told the nation Wednesday morning that Edward J. King's victory was an Eastern ripple effect from the tidal wave of California's Proposition 13, enough local commentators have since correctly assessed King's victory as a mere confirmation of the intensity of the contempt with which Massachusetts liberals hold Michael Dukakis.

My friend, who ten years ago sat side-by-side with Dukakis in the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth and proudly points to himself and Dukakis, and U.S. Rep. Michael J. Harrington '58 (D-Mass.) as members of a group of self-proclaimed "crazies" in the legislature, will never forget the destruction Dukakis wreaked on the state's human services budget in the name of austerity. In the same way, angry taxpayers who voted for Dukakis against then-Gov. Francis W. Sargent because of the Duke's "No New Taxes" pledge on election eve, will never forgive him for the massive tax increases that Dukakis found inevitable six months later.

It takes no particular political skill to unite a series of "hate-groups" to depose a governor who was hated with the depth that Dukakis was, and, in fact, Edward J. King has little political skill and clearly has no subtlety. Another liberal activist and sometime candidate for office refused to read King's campaign literature or even watch him on television, saying, "If I hear anymore of what he says, he'll convince me not to vote for him."

Although there was no joy in Brookline on Wednesday morning, in Beverly Farms, the hometown of Francis W. Hatch '46, there was dancing on the bridle paths. Little more than a week before the election, a local newspaper devoted its Sunday front page to a story asking if perhaps this was the end of the line for Hatch. Denied the Republican state convention's endorsement by political neophyte Edward F. King, Hatch swallowed his anger and resentment and proceeded to run a strong campaign against the Dukakis administration, although he was given little chance of besting Dukakis in November. But because of the Democratic King's victory, and the assumption that Dukakis's liberal enemies will vote for Hatch in November instead of continuing to support King, Hatch--and the Republicans, who were written off as dead two years ago--have the glint of the Golden Dome in their eyes once again.

MASSACHUSETTS POLITICIANS--and perhaps their counterparts everywhere--amuse themselves by indulging in endless speculation about what their friends and enemies alike will be doing next month, next year, or in 1982. And the morning after a particularly tumultuous primary is when the speculation game is at its best.

"What of Dukakis?" they ask.

"Probably will go back to his law firm," the insiders answer.

"A Cabinet post?" "Hmmmm," they say, letting it rattle through their fatigue-and-alcohol-addled brains.

"But wait--what about Tommy O'Neill?" (Tip O'Neill's son, cautious and pleasant but maybe not the brightest guy who ever lived?) "He has to run with Ed King--you can't vote separately for Lieutenant Governor and Governor in Massachusetts--so if Hatch wins, he'll be washed up. Old Tip won't like that. And he certainly won't want Mike Dukakis, the man who helped destroy his son's rise to the governorship, to get a Cabinet post. He won't even want to see Dukakis in Washington." "So if Carter knows what's good for him, Dukakis won't get near the Cabinet, Maybe Channel 2 will take him back."

"Meanwhile, Frank Bellotti sounds like he's starting his 1982 campaign for governor already. With Dukakis, O'Neill, and Paul Guzzi all dead in the water, Bellotti's got the best shot." And so it goes.

The former state rep. pointed out that the discussion sounded like a meeting of an organized crime syndicate the morning after a gang war. "Who's left?' we ask. "Who's going to move into the territory?"

Amusing and enjoyable as all the speculation is, politicians tend to forget that it is ultimately the voters who decide who is elected and who has a long vacation ahead.

As a reminder, cast your thoughts back to June of this year. In early June I ran into a few political operatives and one well-informed reporter, and asked their assessment of the upcoming primary elections.

"Is Dukakis in trouble?" I asked, mindful that he had been in severe trouble before the Blizzard of '78.

"No, he's got it sewed up. Ed King won't get anywhere."

"And Ed Brooke?"

"He's dead. This divorce thing will finish him."

"But who'll take it from him?"

"Kathleen Sullivan-Alioto, maybe. Avi Nelson, maybe. Or Paul Guzzi, if he gets into it."

"And Paul Tsongas?"

"Nope, not a chance. He's good, but nobody knows him outside the Fifth District. It's too bad he'll lose. He's a good Congressman."

It was all true. Brooke looked vulnerable, Guzzi and Alioto seemed to have the best shot. And Tsongas was not only unknown, he was unpronouncable. But he was also smart, creative, had a good staff, and about $400,000 worth of power behind him. He went on television early and used a self-effacing ad that began with a series of ordinary citizens mispronouncing his name--a touch of humor that spelled the beginning of the end for Guzzi.

Nobody, today, can accurately call the Brooke-Tsongas race. Nor can anyone yet predict the Hatch-King race. Hatch-King will probably boil down to a clear liberal-versus-conservative battle, unless Tip O'Neill calls in his favors throughout the Democratic party to try to save Ed King, and therefore his son Tom. But even if Hatch-King is clearly a liberal-conservative choice, the races so far have been so confused by other factors that nobody has a clear idea of where the balance of power lies.