Michael Dukakis calls Donald Trump ‘a gift from God’ to Democrats
"If we take advantage of it," he quickly added.
Michael Dukakis has made no secret what he thinks of Donald Trump.
The former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee has called the presumptive 2016 Republican nominee “nuts” and the party’s “weakest” candidate.
In an interview Tuesday with WGBH’s Boston Public Radio, Dukakis said Trump, disagreeable as he may be for Democrats, may also present an opportunity.
“A gift from God to the Democratic Party, if we take advantage of it” he said of the GOP front-runner, adding that he thought Democrats could regain the majority in Congress, as well as the presidency.
Trump’s hisotrically high unfavorable ratings have sparked much speculation that Democrats could retake the Senate and even the House of Representatives, both of which are controlled by Republicans.
“This has got to be a 50-state campaign,” Dukakis said, adding that if Democrats compete in every precinct, regardless of whether they were labeled “red or blue” in the past, 2016 could be “a transformative election.”
Braude pushed back on the assertion, referring to polling out Tuesday showing tight races between Hillary Clinton and Trump in states like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania (even though general election polls this far out are not necessarily accurate, as Nate Silver will tell you).
Braude also noted that Trump had tapped into a sense of frustration with politics and the economy.
With that response, Dukakis’s outlook became less optimistic, and more critical of Democrats’ recent emphasis on social issues, rather then the economic anxieties of the working class.
“This has been going on for a long time, Jim,” he said. “Remember, Reagan won a lot of these folks, a lot of white working class guys and so on and so forth. I got some of them back. [President Bill] Clinton got them all back.”
Dukakis recalled how he won West Virginia, which has voted solidly Republican in the last four presidential elections, when he was the Democratic nominee in 1988.
“You know, working-class West Virginia,” Dukakis said. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get those folks back, but we’ve got to deal with the issues they care about.”
“And I’m not sure we’re doing that very effectively,” he added.
Asked what Clinton, who Dukakis supports, should be doing differently, the 82-year-old said Democrats as a group need to reframe their messaging, so that people understand how issues, such as health care, relate to and benefit workers.
“I think we’ve got to understand that that’s a core constituency of ours and we’ve got to speak to them,” he said, “and I don’t think we’re going that as well as we should be—but this is a good opportunity to do it.”
Dukakis did, however, admit that he was “the last guy in the world to try and advise anyone on messaging,” given “what happened to [him] in ’88.”
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