Michael Dukakis Quotes
I always begin my courses by saying if I knew anything about, politics, I wouldn’t be here.
Michael Dukakis, Governor, Massachusetts (Democrat), Democratic Presidential Nominee, Statement to reporters regarding his teaching at Northeastern University, June 1996
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Many feel that this explains why he never ran for the Presidency even though he was the odds on favorite to win the Democratic Party Primary and the General Election.
He had been offered a Cabinet position in Washington. He had been a respected judge in Ohio and was only tangentially involved with politics. What he did see of it he did not like. However, others pressed upon him his duty to help the country and he took the position. But he was never comfortable or even very skilled and the political end of Cabinet service but he was extremely skilled at the administrative and policy making aspect. Theodore Roosevelt personally selected him to be his successor and Roosevelt get him elected. Even when he was President, he rarely enjoyed it and was not very good at the political end of things which caused Roosevelt to be disappointed and then campaign against Taft’s second term.
Michael Stanley Dukakis is a retired American politician and lawyer who served as the 65th governor of Massachusetts, from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history and only the second Greek-American governor in U.S. history, after Spiro Agnew. He was nominated by the Democratic Party for president in the 1988 election, losing to the Republican nominee, Vice President George H. W. Bush.
