Making the Spirit of Massachusetts Fit the Spirit of America

When Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, today's Class Day speaker, decided this spring to run for the Democratic presidential nomination, many people at the Kennedy School of Government were very happy.

Dukakis, who graduated from the Law School in 1961, has been connected with Harvard almost as long as he has been in politics. And it was at the K-School that Dukakis spent several years teaching and reflecting after he lost the state's governorship in 1978 in the wake of a rocky first term as the state's chief executive.

He recaptured the governorship in 1982, was reelected in a landslide last year, and announced in March that he would run for president, staking his candidacy on his nine years of experience as governor, his reputation for diligence and integrity, and his views on a variety of issues.

After two months of campaigning, Dukakis has moved up substantially in the polls, gaining more support than other Democrats from the with-drawal of Gary Hart, the previous frontrunner.

But despite his climb in the public opinion polls and his strength in New Hampshire, a key primary state, Dukakis is still perceived largely as a regional candidate, with strong backing in the Northeast but little recognition in the South and West, critical areas in the 1988 presidential race.

Dukakis the candidate will rely on the experiences of Dukakis the governor as he attempts to translate the Bay State's economic success into a model for national economic policy that has popular appeal.

The Iran-contra scandal, which has focused concern on President Reagan's apparently lakadasical management style, stands to help Dukakis, because friends and colleagues have long characterized him as a hands-on manager interested in the details and execution of policy.

"I've known Mike for 20 years. The thing that distinguishes him has been his interest in the details and the implementation, making sure that what sounds right in theory works, both at the Kennedy School and as Governor," says Hale Champion, the Kennedy School's executive dean who is on a leave of absence to act as Dukakis's chief secretary.

But Dukakis's inexperience with foreign policy may weigh down his candidacy. One of the central challenges facing the Massachusetts governor as he moves to form a national coalition is formulating policies to deal with issues involving the Soviets and the Third World, where he has little experience.

It is in areas where he has less experience that his years at the Kennedy School and his extensive network of Harvard contacts will come into play.

Dukakis's Harvard connection has underscored the academic link which has been integral to his development as a leading political figure. Less than a week after his March 16 announcement, Dukakis gave his first important foreign policy speech at the Law School and appointed Champion his chief order to free his then-chief secretary to campaign for him.

Dukakis stressed economic revitalization and world peace as key issues on March 19, the last time he spoke at Harvard. In his Class Day address to seniors, however, he will talk not about specific policy formulations, but about the value of public service.

"I'm quite sure [the speech] will be about the importance of public service, about doing something that goes beyond your particular needs," Dukakis says. The Governor, who has spent his entire career in Massachusetts politics, says he will ask the seniors "to commit themselves in whatever way to public service."

In Dukakis's own public service career, Harvard has played and will continue to play an important role. Coming between his unsuccessful first term as governor and a far smoother period as the state's chief executive after 1982, Dukakis's tenure at the Kennedy School was a critical period in his political development.

Dukakis's first term as governor was characterized by public relations problems, as many of the policies he instituted provoked reaction from community groups and the press. Massachusetts earned the sobriquet of "Taxachusetts" under Dukakis's leadership in the mid-1970s as the state tried to remedy an economic crisis with taxes that were among the highest in the nation.

His defeat in the 1978 gubernatorial race at the hands of Edward J. King was a watershed for Dukakis, who retreated to the shelter of the Kennedy School and re-evaluated his goals.

As Kennedy School Dean Graham T. Allison '62, a close friend of Dukakis, explains, "His years at the Kennedy School were a very important time in his life. Being defeated was a crushing experience. He was a little shellshocked."

"Failure is a great teacher--Mike really learned from his mistakes," Allison says. Dukakis learned through developing the Kennedy School's state and local programs, through teaching courses on the role of the elected official, and through informal consultations with K-School faculty.

"The Kennedy School was a very important period for me. I had lost the last election, and it was a rare opportunity not only to influence and develop the state and local programs, but also to do some thinking and reflecting," Dukakis says.

Not everyone was enthusiastic when Allison enlisted Dukakis to teach at the school of government. "The objectors were fearing we would become a dumping ground for failed politicians," Allison says. After a disastrous gubernatorial race and a spotty first term record, Dukakis's political fortunes seemed in decline, and members of the K-School faculty questioned the worth of bringing the former governor to the academic community.

"Mike was the first real live elected politician we engaged with in a serious manner. When I hired him there was less than unanimous enthusiasm in the faculty. In fact, there was substantial opposition," Allison says. "But I hired him because I saw Dukakis as an unusual person with great creativity of mind," he says.

Lecturer in Public Policy Robert Reich, one of Dukakis's economic policy advisers, now says of Kennedy School faculty members, "We are his brain trust in residence." Dukakis won over students and colleagues at the Kennedy School through a combination of accessibility, teaching ability and commitment.

"He rolled up his sleeves and worked hard at this place. There was not the slightest hint that he was using it as a convenient respite," Reich says.

Academic Dean Albert Carnesale, who has advised Dukakis on nuclear power and the Seabrook, N.H. power plant, says that Dukakis "never did campaign from the Kennedy School." Instead, "just like any teacher, he learned a lot from teaching," he says. Dukakis won the support of Bay State voters in the next gubernatorial election.

Dukakis himself acknowledges the changes wrought by three years of considering politics from an academic perspective: "My years at the Kennedy School taught me several things. I'm a better listener, I think longer about decisions, and I'm a better builder of coalitions, which has made me a much more effective governor and would make me a much more effective president."

Coalition-building and improved public relations were an integral part of the transformed Dukakis who ran for governor in 1982. "We spend a lot of time and attention here worrying about the relationship between political managers and the world that they have to deal with outside the narrow confines of their office. I'd like to think some of that rubbed off on Mike," Reich says.

Critics of Dukakis say his victory in 1982 represented a public relations coup rather than a political re-orientation. "I was completely convinced that Dukakis had changed [in 1982]. What had changed was his presentation, tremendously," says Jean Deaver, a Boston community activist who has opposed the Governor's economic programs.

From a public relations standpoint, Dukakis's years since the Kennedy School have been an unqualified success, spurred in large part by what the Governor's supporters term "the Massachusetts economic miracle." Unemployment here is the lowest in the nation, the high-tech industry has revitalized the economy and the Governor's much-touted Employment in Training (ET) program has succeeded in removing 30,000 welfare recipients from the rolls.

Dukakis takes much of the credit for this economic turnaround. "Mike is saying `don't just ask me where I stand, ask me what I've done,"' explains Champion, adding that developments in business, science, physical infrastructure and education are the lynchpins of both Dukakis's state program and his national platform.

But some say he has had little to do with Massachusetts's good fortune. Reich says that one-quarter of the economic turnaround can be attributed to the Governor's programs, but that the other three-quarters are the result of factors outside of his control, such as including federal contracts and venture capital.

And although the ET program--which aims to "help welfare recipients move out of dependence and into productive jobs," in Reich's words--has succeeded in removing substantial numbers of welfare recipients from the rolls, critics charge that the program is actually a modified version of Gov. Edward King's economic plan.

But despite these contentions, Dukakis may be starting to emerge from the pack of Democratic would-be presidents and is, says Champion, "one of the serious heavyweight contenders in this business."