‘Unmasked’ Dukakis Is More Like Carter or McGovern, Quayle Says

Summoning the hobgoblins of a recent Democratic past, Dan Quayle said in Halloween speeches Monday that when Michael S. Dukakis “took off his mask” and declared himself a liberal, he should have revealed the images of former President Jimmy Carter and former Democratic presidential nominees George S. McGovern and Walter F. Mondale.

By instead citing former Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy as his role models, Quayle charged, Dukakis was “impersonating America’s heroes.”

“Think of who he’s trying to compare himself to,” the Republican vice presidential nominee said. “F.D.R., who took on the totalitarianism and terrorism of his day. . . . Harry Truman was the one that drew the line on the advance of communism, whether in Greece, the 38th parallel in Korea, or the Berlin airlift. . . . J.F.K. was able to stare down the Soviet Union in our own hemisphere.”

‘Misuse of Power’

But Dukakis, Quayle charged, described the invasion of Grenada as “a misuse of power,” questioned the legality of the American raid on Libya, and has refused to commit to the modernization of strategic nuclear forces.

“Michael Dukakis compared himself to the wrong liberals,” the Indiana senator declared, predicting in Muskegon, Mich., that if elected, the Massachusetts governor would “give us the failed policies just as Jimmy Carter did.” Repeatedly, Quayle raised the specter of a future “with the clock turned back,” burdened by high inflation and interest rates, a weak national defense and “gas lines and malaise.”

Seeking further to discredit Dukakis’ new self-styled image, Quayle even grinningly dredged up a version of a painfully familiar barb. This year’s Democratic nominee, he said, bore no resemblance to either F.D.R. or Harry Truman “and Michael Dukakis is no Jack Kennedy.”

With what Quayle called Dukakis’ “election-eve confession” Sunday providing an opening, the vice presidential nominee spent all day Monday mocking the Massachusetts governor. The coincidental holiday fueled imagery that left his audiences laughing in delight.

It was Halloween, Quayle announced to a rally at a barren ski resort here, and Dukakis still hadn’t decided what costume to wear.

“If he dresses up as a moderate, he’ll scare all the liberals in his party,” Quayle said. “If he dresses up as a conservative, nobody will believe him. And if he comes as himself, that will scare America.”

“He might be able to get away with a masquerade on Halloween,” Quayle said later. “But on Election Day, the disguises come off.”