Party Politics : Son Stresses Dukakis’ Ethnic Roots at Valley Greek Festival

John Dukakis could hardly have hoped to compete with the wild bouzouki tunes of The Hellenic Sounds, the furious folk-dancing and the 10 kinds of flaky Greek pastry that dominated the Valley Greek Festival in Northridge on Sunday.

But the 29-year-old son of presidential candidate Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis did his best to capture the attention of the several thousand participants.

“Try for a minute not to think of him as a politician, but as a very proud son of Greek immigrants,” John Dukakis said. A few people in the crowd cheered.

Dukakis predicted that if his father is elected, there would be a resurgence of Greek culture, forcing Greek festivals to move from places like the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church grounds to “places like Dodger Stadium” and bringing Greek cooking out of the realm of festivals and into the White House.

Within seconds after his short speech, the music and dancing resumed.

But such apparent nonchalance toward the candidate’s son did not reflect the anticipation and soul-searching that preceded his appearance. Michael Dukakis has placed the Los Angeles Greek community in quite a quandary.

“We want a Greek president, but it would be easier if he were Republican,” said Steve Roukis, who was selling rugs at the festival.

Roukis said he has not decided how he will vote in the June 7 primary or the November election. He, and others, share a common political conviction: financial success breeds conservatism.

“You have to say, ‘Do I want to support the social programs or do I want to maintain what I have with the Republican program?’ ” Roukis said.

For some Republican Greeks, the draw of an ethnic candidate has been strong enough to persuade them to re-register as Democrats.

“Being Greek, you had to go that route,” said Teddy Phillips.

Phillips, who described himself as a true-blue Reagan Republican, became so enamored of Dukakis that he used his skills as a former big band leader to write two songs that he hopes will be used in the campaign. One is an upbeat march that says of Dukakis, “He’s not in the Bush league. He’s number one. With class and dignity, he gets the job done.”

Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt last ran for office in 1944 has Despo Chosa considered herself a Democrat. But the chance to vote for Dukakis also caused her to change her registration.

“I wanted to give him a good showing in the primary,” she said, standing surrounded by the 37,000 pastries she and a dozen other women baked for the festival.

Chosa disagrees with Dukakis’ stand against capital punishment, she said, but otherwise thinks he has some good ideas. Yet most of all, she said voting for him is a demonstration of patriotism and ethnic pride. To her, he represents how far Greek immigrants and their offspring have come.

Lea Dimitriadis has an even more personal reason for supporting Dukakis.

“My son looks exactly like Dukakis,” said Dimitriadis, who lives in church-run senior citizens apartments next to St. Nicholas.

The Greek community’s mixed feelings about Dukakis are not lost on John Dukakis. In an interview after his speech he acknowledged that wooing Greeks with his father’s more common messages--social welfare reform and pared-down defense--does not appeal to conservative Greeks.

At Greek festivals around the nation he and other campaigning family members tend to choose the safer, more emotional approach of describing the common immigrant roots because, he said, “you never know whether you’re talking to 90% Republicans.”

Greek culture and Greek Orthodox religion was introduced to John Dukakis when he was 5, and his mother, Kitty, married Michael Dukakis. But the candidate’s now-adopted son remains Jewish like his mother.

The Northridge festival, in its 15th year, continues today.