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Michael Stanley Dukakis (born November 3, 1933) is a politician from Massachusetts in
the United States.
Dukakis graduated from Swarthmore College in 1955, served in the U.S. Army,
and then received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1960. He was Governor of Massachusetts from 1974 until 1978, and but lost in to Ed King in the Democratic primary election when he ran for reelection. He was Governor again from 1982 until 1990. Dukakis presided over a period of prosperity in Massachusetts.
Residents of the city of Boston and its surrounding areas remember him for the
improvements he made to Boston's mass transit system, especially major
renovations to the city's underground trains. He was known as the only governor who rode the subway to the state capitol every
day.
He also gained fame as the only person in the state Government who went to work during the Blizzard of 1978. During the storm, he went into local TV studios to announce emergency
bulletins.
He was the Democratic Party nominee
for President of the United States in
the 1988 elections, but lost to
George H. W. Bush. Dukakis was attacked by Bush before the
election as "a card-carrying liberal" for his membership of the American Civil Liberties Union. Dukakis has been blamed for allowing "liberal" to be
considered a bad word, and was lampooned for an ill-considered photo-op in a
tank in which his wearing of a helmet made him
appear out of place and was used by his opponents campaign as evidence he would not make a good commander-in-chief. His vice-presidential candidate was
Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas.
He later served on the board of directors for Amtrak, and became a distinguished professor of political science at Northeastern
University in Massachusetts. He resides in his boyhood home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
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