1988 Bush VS. Dukakis

"New Era"

Transcript

Museum of the Moving Image
The Living Room Candidate
"New Era," Dukakis, 1988

(Background music, cheers and applause.)

[TEXT: JULY 21, 1988.]

MICHAEL DUKAKIS: We're going to build the kind of America where hard work is rewarded, where American goods and American workmanship are the best in the world. That's what this election is all about.

MALE NARRATOR: He turned around the ten-year economic slide and created a boom that has made Massachusetts one of the hottest economies in the country. He brought people together, created over 400,000 jobs and pushed personal income to the highest levels in the nation. He erased a massive deficit, balanced ten budgets in a row and cut taxes five times. It wasn't a miracle. It was leadership.

(Cheering and music in background.)

DUKAKIS: By working together to create opportunity and a good life for all, all of us are enriched, not just in economic terms but as citizens and as human beings.

MALE NARRATOR: For a new era of economic greatness in America, Michael Dukakis for president.

[TEXT: Dukakis/Bentson)

Credits

"New Era," Dukakis-Bentsen Comm, Inc., 1988

Original air date: 08/10/88

From Museum of the Moving Image, The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2012.
www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1988/new-era (accessed July 23, 2025).

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1988 Bush Dukakis Results

Ronald Reagan—the first president since Eisenhower to serve two full terms—had presided over a renewed national optimism, but there were dark clouds on the horizon as his presidency drew to a close. The federal deficit was soaring out of control. The revelation that profits from American sales of weapons to Iran were illegally routed to the Nicaraguan contras spawned a major scandal. Wall Street was in turmoil following several insider-trading scandals and the October 1987 stock market collapse. The stage was set for one of the most bitter presidential campaigns in recent history: Vice President George Bush, who portrayed himself as the rightful heir to the Reagan revolution, versus Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who offered a traditionally Democratic vision of increased government spending on health care, child care, education, and housing. The Bush campaign used brutal television advertising to portray Dukakis as an ineffective liberal who would gut the country’s defense system and let convicted murderers out of prison. Hoping voters would dismiss the attacks as unfair, Dukakis refused to counterattack until late in the campaign. By then it was too late.