The U.S. Presidential Elections 1988 (ePub)

George H.W. BushGeorge Bush, a New England aristocrat partially transplanted to Texas, entered politics afteralmost two decades in the oil business. He was born on 12 June 1924 in Massachusetts, andgrew up in a wealthy New York suburb.Bush followed his father's example in switching from financial success in business to politics.He was and unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Texas in 1964 and1970, was elected to the House of Representatives in 1966 and again in 1968. After losing therace for the Senate in 1970, Bush was appointed by Presidents Nixon and Ford to a successionof important positions: U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, chairman of the RNC, liaisonto China, and director of the CIA. In January 1977 Bush resigned as head of the CIA andreturned to Texas, where he began campaigning for the presidency in 1978. However, he lostthe nomination to the more glamorous and conservative Ronald Reagan, who later picked himto be his running mate for the office of vice-president. The Reagan-Bush ticket won easily in1980, and 1984.Michael DukakisMichael Dukakis's political strength, and the reason he won the Democratic nomination in1988, was the fact that very different kinds of Democrats and liberals could project theirhopes onto him. At heart, the Governor of Massachusetts was an old-style Democrat.Dukakis's style was that of the upper-middle-class reformers who were now so important tothe Democratic nominating process. Yet Dukakis was also a Greek American, the "son ofimmigrants," as he would say over and over. His approach to government was intenselyserious and mistrustful of politics-as-usual.