Dukakis Deplores Flyer as ‘Political Garbage’ : He Denounces Republican Campaign Tactics, Blasts Suggestion He Would Free Mass Killer

Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis angrily denounced Republican campaign tactics Wednesday, blasting a lurid brochure that suggests he would free Chicago mass murderer John Wayne Gacy.

“Friends, this is garbage,” Dukakis said, holding up several flyers at a packed downtown rally in this Mississippi River town. “This is political garbage. This isn’t worthy of a presidential campaign.”

As the crowd cheered, Dukakis said: “Make sure the people of Illinois know who Mike Dukakis is, and what my record is. And tell them these kinds of lies and half-truths have no place in a presidential, or any political campaign.”

Dukakis’ energetic oratory came on a day when two new polls put him in relatively better position than a poll two days ago. Then, an NBC News survey taken Friday through Sunday showed Dukakis trailing Republican nominee George Bush by 17 points. But a Washington Post/ABC News poll taken Oct. 12 through Tuesday showed Dukakis trailing by 7 points, 52% to 45%, and a Harris poll done Friday through Monday put the race at 53% to 44%.

“I’d like to say we’ve gained 10 points,” said Dukakis campaign chairman Paul A. Brountas, but he said he did not believe the NBC poll to begin with.

Dukakis’ angry comments, which were not included in his speech text, were the only harsh note on a day devoted to rich political Americana. For 13 hours, he led five busloads of reporters and aides on a 186-mile “Best America Tour,” stopping six times for rallies and speeches amid the rolling farmland and rural towns of western Illinois and eastern Missouri.

Dukakis responded for the first time publicly to Republican brochures that have flooded Texas and other key states. Many of the flyers misstate his record and positions on crime, gun control, the death penalty, the Pledge of Allegiance, and other emotional issues.

In Illinois, the Republican State Central Committee has mailed two vitriolic flyers. Bush spokesman Mark Goodin said in Washington that the Bush campaign “doesn’t have any connection” to the state brochures, and declined comment on their contents.

One Illinois pamphlet charges that Dukakis “let murderers, rapists and child molesters free on weekend passes.” It cites the now-infamous case of Willie Horton, a murderer who escaped while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison and later raped a Maryland woman and beat her boyfriend, and alleged that Gacy would also have been furloughed in Massachusetts.

Gacy is on Death Row in Illinois. He was convicted in 1980 in the sex killings of 33 young men and boys in the Chicago area.

The Massachusetts governor suspended the furlough program for first-degree murderers last April as criticism mounted over the Horton case. But aides said Gacy would have been ineligible for a Massachusetts furlough even before the law changed because he had not served 10 years and was not in a minimum security prison.

Ironically, USA Today reported Wednesday that Horton, who is in a Maryland penitentiary, now claims that Bush is lying about his case. Asked his preference for President, Horton replied: “Obviously, I am for Dukakis.”

Asked by a reporter Wednesday about the unwanted endorsement, Dukakis snapped: “He can’t vote.”

Bush spokesman Goodin gloated about Horton’s comment, however. “He can talk about all the campaign paraphernalia he wants, but Willie Horton’s endorsement says it all.”

In his speech, Dukakis defended his record on crime, and cited a federal furlough program that has released thousands of drug dealers and violent criminals, including a federal prisoner from Tucson, Ariz., who raped and murdered a woman on Feb. 1, 1987.

“I would never use that kind of human tragedy to accuse the vice president of being soft on crime,” Dukakis said. “Maybe that’s a fundamental difference between me and George Bush.”

Dukakis also blasted Republican brochures that focus on his support for limited gun control as a “pack of lies.”

“I’ve always supported the right of hunters and sportsman to have weapons and use them,” he said. “I’m concerned about teen-age kids in our cities with AK-47s and Uzis who are driving around killing people.”

Dukakis began the day by going to Hull, Ill., to hold an appealing if incongruous “teleconference” at Jim and Mable Reed’s 900-acre hog and corn farm with farmers in 20 states around the country.

With about 150 farmers arrayed on hay bales before him, Dukakis answered questions about farm policy and rural America for an hour from callers from Jonesboro, Ark., to Grand Forks, N.D., to Salem, Ore.

The impact was difficult to gauge. “He made some good points, but I haven’t quite made up my mind,” said Jesse Tittsworth, a 78-year-old cantaloupe grower.