"George Bush was in a tank three times during that campaign!"
- Michael Dukakis
Former Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis pointed this out to me in an interview 5 years ago while explaining how the imfamous "tank ad" that the Bush campaign ran against him - but I'd never been able to find any images, until now.
Here's an excerpt from our interview:
ME: Tell me about the--the tank advertisement.
DUKAKIS: It wasn’t an ad -- well, look; I was in a tank. George Bush was in a tank three times during that campaign! As I often say kidding these days, I’ve never thrown up all over the Japanese Prime Minister. I mean you know these things happen... But I didn’t lose because of the tanks; you know I lost because I didn’t run a very good final campaign.
DUKAKIS: I let myself be defined by my opponent rather than doing the kind of job you have to do--first to blunt those kinds of attacks...
DUKAKIS: If I had a nickel for everybody who has come up to me since 1988 and said you know you’re nothing like the guy we thought we were looking at in 1988--I’d be a millionaire.