Sasso Respected as ‘a Tough Little Pol’

Last July 4, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis stood at the Charles River band shell attempting small talk with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, his guest at the traditional Boston Pops concert.

Suddenly, Jackson’s face beamed and he moved past Dukakis the way one escapes from a tedious guest at a party.

He rushed to greet a short, prematurely graying man in a pink shirt--John Sasso.

Known in the business as “a tough little pol,” Sasso is a man Jackson enjoys talking to, someone who revels in political gossip and hyperbole and enjoys nothing more than attacking Republicans.

Left in Disgrace

Now Sasso is back in the Dukakis campaign, which he once managed but left in disgrace last September when it was disclosed that he had not only leaked a videotape that wounded the candidacy of Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. but had lied about his involvement to Dukakis.

Dukakis has been struggling recently and he has finally reached out to Sasso, whom he once described as like a brother.

Not least among the things Sasso brings to the Dukakis effort is that rapport with Jackson, whose frustration with his role in the campaign threatens to create major problems in the coming weeks.

Political professionals also say Sasso is the one person Dukakis will really listen to even if he does not like what he is hearing.

Political Hardball

But more than that, Sasso, who will be vice chairman of the campaign, brings to the struggling Dukakis campaign what is known as political hardball--a willingness to attack relentlessly and to think up the kinds of unexpected national media events that keep the other camp awake at night.

In that sense he will be a creative consultant to Susan Estrich, the former Harvard professor who replaced him as campaign manager last year and who is respected for her ability to get consensus decisions from all the competing egos in a campaign.

“Michael Dukakis is more comfortable with a positive, public policy debate,” said Los Angeles Democratic adviser Mickey Kantor. “But I think Sasso’s return means he has finally realized that this campaign against George Bush is not going to be that. It is going to be a comparison of two men the public does not know that much about. And unfortunately that means a very negative campaign.”

Started as Student

Sasso, a 41-year-old native of Paterson, N.J., got into the rough and tumble of Massachusetts politics while a student at Boston University. Later he masterminded Dukakis’ return to the Massachusetts governorship in 1982 after a bitter loss in 1978.

Once back in the Statehouse, Dukakis still preferred thinking about policy and staying above the fray. But his relationship with the Massachusetts Legislature improved dramatically as he let Sasso cut the deals and dole out the favors and punishment typical of a Statehouse operation.

In 1984, Sasso took a leave from Dukakis to run the vice presidential campaign of Democrat Geraldine A. Ferraro. It was a lost cause from the start, but Sasso got something few in the Dukakis presidential effort have: national campaign experience.

Since leaving the Dukakis campaign a year ago, Sasso has been a senior vice president with Hill, Holliday, Connors & Cosmopulos Inc., a top advertising agency in Boston. But he has quietly kept in touch with the presidential campaign he had helped create.

“John Sasso is to this campaign what Indiana’s Bobby Knight is to basketball--a brilliant field general,” said Democratic political consultant Paul Ambrosino. “Even if he throws a chair across the court once in awhile, you don’t go to the finals without him.”