Dukakis Pledges to Lead U.S. to ‘a New Era of Greatness’ : Heaps Scorn on Record of Reagan Years

Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis, in a stirring acceptance speech, Thursday night heaped scorn on the Reagan Administration’s performance at home and abroad, vowed to eliminate corruption from government and pledged to bring “a new era of greatness to America.”

“This election isn’t about ideology. It’s about competence,” Dukakis told more than 4,000 cheering, banner-waving Democrats who jammed Atlanta’s Omni convention hall to the rafters.

“It’s not about overthrowing governments in Central America; it’s about creating good jobs in middle America . . . It’s not about meaningless labels. It’s about American values. Old-fashioned values like accountability and responsibility and respect for the truth,” he said, leaving no doubt that he intends to make corruption a dominant issue in the fall campaign.

And, in a scathing reference to the role of GOP opponent George Bush in the Iran-Contra scandal, Dukakis declared:

“We’re going to have a vice president who won’t sit silently by when somebody at the National Security Council comes up with the cockamamie idea that we should trade arms to the Ayatollah for hostages; we’re going to have a vice president named Lloyd Bentsen who will walk into the Oval Office and say, ‘Mr. President, this is a disgrace and it’s got to stop.’ ”

The delegates roared their approval and interrupted Dukakis’ speech with chants of “Where Was George? Where Was George?”--a jeering reference to the vice president’s contention that he was not present or did not understand when Administration officials discussed selling arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages in Lebanon.

Unusual Force

The governor, although not known as a powerful orator, delivered a well-written, sometimes-eloquent address with unusual force and emotion--presenting a poignant account of his background as a son of Greek immigrants and dramatizing the issues he believes will dominate this year’s presidential election.

And Dukakis, who cannot capture the White House unless he wins over millions of nominally Democratic voters who supported President Reagan in 1980 and 1984, targeted his attacks carefully--aiming at what he portrayed as the blunders, insensitivities and scandals of the Administration instead of attacking President Reagan himself or the free-enterprise, less-government themes Reagan has championed.

Indeed, Dukakis almost echoed Reagan when he vowed to help the needy and disadvantaged by stimulating a new era of economic progress for all Americans and create jobs for those now dependant on welfare.

But he combined an attack on the Administration performance in office with a jab at Bush when he declared: “It’s time to rekindle the American spirit of invention and daring; to exchange voodoo economics for can-do economics.” As a candidate for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, Bush derided Reagan’s economic theories as “voodoo economics.”

Dukakis brought the crowd to its feet when, hitting hard at the conduct of Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and other scandal-scarred Administration officials, he declared: “We’re going to have a Justice Department that isn’t the laughing stock of the nation--we’re going to have a Justice Department that understands what the word Justice means.”

Speaks in Spanish

Recognizing the critical role of ethnic minorities in the Democratic Party, Dukakis paid tribute to the late Willie Velasquez of Texas for registering thousands of Latino voters--delivering his tribute both in English and in meticulously accented Spanish.

His use of Spanish brought sustained cheers from the Texas, California and other delegations with substantial Latino contingents--the Texans waving a “Viva Dukakis-Bentsen” banner and the California delegation cheering “Vi-Va Mike!”

Moreover, though his image had been overshadowed during most of this convention by the Rev. Jesse Jackson--the runner-up in the race for the nomination--Dukakis said he was “inspired by the powerful words” of the civil rights leader in his address to the convention Tuesday night, a comment that Jackson and his wife and children, seated in a box they shared with former President Jimmy Carter, stood and applauded.

Rare Show of Emotion

Dukakis, in a rare public display of emotion, had a film of tears in his eyes and his voice wavered as he spoke of his father arriving on Ellis Island 76 years ago as an immigrant from Greece with only $25 in his pocket, “but with a deep and abiding faith in the promise of America.”

“How I wish he was here tonight,” Dukakis said, departing from his prepared text and momentarily looking down. “He’d be very proud of his son . . . and he’d be very proud of his country.”

“Tonight, as a son of immigrants with a wonderful wife and four terrific children; as a proud public servant who has cherished every minute of the last 16 months on the campaign trail, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.”

‘Somewhat Frugal’

Dukakis also, in a rare use of humor in a major speech, improvised a one-liner. After his scripted remark that he has a reputation for being “a somewhat frugal man,” he added “for the record” that his 25-year-old snow blower, featured in the video that preceded his speech, was “still in good working order.”

He also added two lines at the beginning of his speech. Referring to an incident when his cousin, actress Olympia Dukakis, received an Oscar for her supporting role in the movie “Moonstruck,” he said: “A few months ago, when Olympia Dukakis, in front of a billion and a half people, raised that Oscar over her head and said ‘Michael, let’s go,’ she wasn’t kidding!”

At that point, a resounding chant of “Let’s Go, Mike” spread across the hall.

Avoid Picture

As Jackson and his family came to the podium to join Dukakis and Bentsen at the end of the nominee’s speech, Dukakis was positioned so that he was not standing next to Jackson, denying the Republicans a picture of what they have already been trying to tag as “not a ticket, but a troika.”

The orchestra thumped into rendition after rendition of Sousa marches. The other Democratic candidates from the primary season trooped to the podium to congratulate Dukakis. Former President Carter and the unsuccessful 1984 nominee, Walter F. Mondale, followed. Then came Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, until the stage was a panorama of Democratic leadership.

The speech, with its large potential for shaping the public’s perception of a relatively little-known leader, was not only carefully written but carefully staged.

In a scene reminiscent of the way boxing champions traditionally enter the arena, Dukakis entered the packed convention hall from behind the bleachers and--surrounded by aides and Secret Service agents--made his way through the cheering throng, smiling and shaking hands as loudspeakers boomed out the Neil Diamond rock song “Coming to America.”

Invokes Kennedy

And in his speech, Dukakis not only invoked the name of the late President John F. Kennedy but crafted a variation of one of Kennedy’s most famous lines, describing the United States as “a country where each of us asks not only what’s in it for us but what’s good and what’s right for all of us.”

Indeed, according to Dukakis aides, he enlisted the help of Kennedy speech-writer and adviser Theodore C. Sorensen in preparing his own address.

Dukakis also borrowed one of Reagan’s favorite rhetorical devices, anecdotes about unsung American heroes:

“When a young teacher named Dawn Lawson leaves seven years of welfare to become a personnel specialist for a Fortune 500 company in Worcester, Massachusetts--we are all enriched and ennobled,” Dukakis said.

He went on to cite Catholic priest Bill Kraus of Denver, who finds jobs for the homeless, and principal George McKenna and his staff at George Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles, who send 80% of their graduates to college although the student body is 90% black and 10% Latino.

Major Point of Attack

Making it clear that he intends to make corruption or the so-called “sleaze” issue a major point of attack in the campaign, Dukakis said that “in the Dukakis White House, as in the Dukakis State House, if you accept the privilege of public service, you had better understand the responsibilities of public service.”

“If you violate that trust,” he said, “you’ll be fired; if you violate the law, you’ll be prosecuted; and if you sell arms to the Ayatollah, don’t expect a pardon from the President of the United States.”

“One very special goal” for a Dukakis Administration, he said, is to make Americans “proud of a government that sets high standards not just for the American people, but high standards for itself.”

Dukakis, who has made fiscal responsibility and creation of jobs a centerpiece of his campaign, said that in nine years as governor he has “balanced nine more budgets than this Administration has and I’ve just balanced a tenth. And I’ve worked with the citizens of my state--worked hard to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs--and I mean good jobs.”

‘Avalanche of Drugs’

He also promised that as President he would invest in urban neighborhoods, work to revitalize small town and rural America and press a war on “the avalanche of drugs pouring into this country and poisoning our children.”

He said: “We’re going to have a real war--not a phony war--against drugs; and we won’t be doing business with drug-running Panamanian dictators.”

In conclusion, he recalled a pledge that the ancient Greeks would take on important occasions and said it is as eloquent and timely today as it was 2,000 years ago:

“We will never bring disgrace to this, our country, by any act of dishonesty or cowardice. We will fight for the ideals of this, our country. We will revere and obey the laws. We will strive to quicken our sense of civic duty. Thus, in all these ways, we will transmit this country greater, better, stronger, prouder and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”

Bush-Bashing Pays Off

Meanwhile, an ABC national poll conducted Wednesday night not only showed Dukakis advancing in trial runs against Bush but indicated that the Bush-bashing by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and other convention speakers paid off for the Democrats.

The poll showed Dukakis leading Bush by 53% to 41%--an eight-point gain for Dukakis since Sunday, when an ABC preconvention poll showed them virtually deadlocked: Bush 46%, Dukakis 45%.

Political conventions normally give nominees a nudge in poll standings, but typically not by as much as eight points. In the seven elections from 1960 through 1984, the average boost for the Democratic nominees was three points.

The post-convention increase often has been temporary, of course, and at this stage of the election campaign many voters have not focused on the general election. For the first time in ABC polling, Wednesday’s poll indicated more Americans had unfavorable views of Bush--44%--than had favorable views--41%.

The poll also showed Jackson, his image boosted considerably by the convention, now has a more favorable image than Bush--52%-31%, including a 47%-34% plurality of whites. Last Sunday’s poll showed Jackson’s detractors, 42%, roughly equaled his admirers, 43%.

Slashing Attack

In his acceptance speech, Bentsen unleashed a slashing attack on “the Reagan-Bush Administration,” accusing it of pursuing economic, trade and energy policies that have “devastated vast areas of America.”

“America,” Bentsen declared, “has just passed through the ultimate epoch of illusion: An eight-year coma in which slogans were confused with solutions and rhetoric passed for reality; a time when America tried to borrow its way to prosperity and became the largest debtor nation in the history of mankind; when the Reagan-Bush Administration gave lip service to progress while fighting a frantic, losing battle to turn back the clock on civil rights and equal opportunity; a time of tough talk on foreign policy amid strange tales of double-dealing Swiss bank accounts, and a botched campaign against a drug-running tin-horn dictator.”

Contributing to this story were staff writers David Lauter, Patt Morrison, Henry Weinstein, Douglas Jehl, George Skelton and Bob Drogin.

Related stories: Pages 4-10; View, Page 1; Calendar, Page 1.