Greg Stevens, 58; GOP strategist used Dukakis’ ride in a tank against him

Greg Stevens, a Republican political and media strategist who might be best known for taking presidential candidate Michael Dukakis’ 1988 publicity appearance in a tank and using the image against him, died of brain cancer Monday at his home in Yarmouth, Maine. He was 58.

Before starting his Alexandria, Va.-based firm in 1993, Stevens had a long career as a political operative and GOP strategist who learned under Charles Black, Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes. He spoke of Ailes, now chairman of Fox News, as his closest mentor in developing clear visual strategies.

When Ailes was hired in 1988 by the George H.W. Bush campaign, he assigned Stevens to highlight challenger Dukakis’ opposition to military programs.

Stevens later said he spent days in an editing room assembling footage showing Dukakis, a former Massachusetts governor, at a tank factory in Michigan. The result was a slow-motion commercial depicting Dukakis looking ill-suited for the role of commander in chief -- wearing an ungainly helmet as he rode in the turret of a tank.

Darrell West, a Brown University professor of political science and an authority on elections, said, “What was important about the Dukakis tank ad was using Dukakis’ own photo op against itself.”

In dozens of other campaigns, Stevens was “good at using ads to find wedge issues, which divide people but create a lot of intensity and often make people willing to cast votes,” West said. “I’d associate him with the hardball school of politics. He believed in using politics to address tough issues.”

Gregory Clark Stevens, a minister’s son, was born in Abington, Pa., on Nov. 1, 1948, and was raised mostly in Turner, Maine. He was a 1971 education graduate of the University of Maine, where he was class president, and then spent five years as a legislative reporter for the now-defunct News Tribune of Woodbridge, N.J.

Stevens worked on Gerald R. Ford’s 1976 presidential campaign and did other political work in Maine and Washington, D.C. Thomas H. Kean, a Republican, made Stevens his communications director and then chief of staff after being elected governor of New Jersey in 1981.

In 1993, Stevens started what is now the consulting firm of Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm and soon had a large roster of clients. That year he helped then-Rep. George Allen (R-Va.) in his successful campaign for governor.

Stevens and his associates attracted strong criticism at times for his methods. He was fired from Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner’s reelection campaign in 1996 for doctoring an image of his Democratic opponent. The firm also came under fire for a 2006 television commercial made for Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) that digitally added billowing smoke to an image of the Twin Towers taken before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

His firm also made ads during the 2004 presidential race for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advocacy group.

The group, whose members included many financial supporters of President George W. Bush, raised doubts about Democratic challenger John Kerry’s valor as a Navy lieutenant patrolling the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War. Stevens said he had little to do with the Swift Boat ads because they were handled by a partner.

More typical of Stevens’ approach were the ads he created in 1996 for Kansas Sen. Bob Dole’s presidential campaign.

One likened President Clinton’s explanations of his draft avoidance during the Vietnam War to a schoolboy telling a teacher that a dog ate his homework.

Another used rapid-fire editing of Clinton’s constantly shifting timetable to balance the federal budget.

“People are laughing about politics anyway,” Stevens told the Washington Post at the time. “Despite what the pundits ... say, people want the negative information that’s going to help them make a decision -- if it’s done in an entertaining way. All of this stuff is entertainment, frankly.”

Survivors include his wife of 33 years, Judi Files Stevens, and three sons.