Politics 88 : Dukakis Reacts With Nap After a Low-Key Race

When Michael S. Dukakis heard the news at home Tuesday night of his triumph in Pennsylvania’s Democratic presidential primary, probably assuring him his party’s nomination, he responded with characteristic calm: He took a nap.

Such sang-froid was perhaps appropriate for Pennsylvania’s peculiar anticlimax, a wearying but uneventful race only one week after the year’s most bruising battle in neighboring New York.

After leading in Pennsylvania’s polls all week, Dukakis trounced rival Jesse Jackson by nearly 2 to 1 in their first one-on-one match-up.

The Massachusetts governor won despite spending less money on TV and radio ads--some $150,000--than in any other major state. And he won despite avoiding any criticism of Jackson’s policies, or saying virtually anything new.

New-Found Appeal

In a press conference late Tuesday night at Boston’s WGBH-TV studios, Dukakis credited his victory partly to his new-found appeal to the state’s blue-collar workers.

“I think it’s because people look at me and say, ‘This guy’s done it,’ ” he said. “I don’t just talk about jobs. I don’t just talk about economic growth. I’ve done it.”

What Dukakis did was campaign in nearly every congressional district in Pennsylvania, offering hope but few specifics if he is elected. He held out the Oz-like example of Massachusetts’ rags-to-riches economy in the state’s depressed steel towns. And he broadcast only a simple biography ad, not one on issues, on the state’s TV stations.

“It was more important for people to get comfortable with him, to learn who he is, than what he’s done or going to do,” explained Kenneth Swope, one of the campaign’s media advisers.

With an eye on the fall, and dark memories of Republicans denouncing “gloom-and-doom Democrats” in 1984, Dukakis also kept his message upbeat all week.