# Dukakis Tank Ad On September 13, 1988, [[Michael Dukakis]], the Democratic nominee for president, climbed into an M1 tank at a [[General Dynamics]] plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and rode it around a field in front of the press. The idea was to answer the charge that he was weak on defense. He wore a helmet with his name on it and he smiled. Five weeks later the [[George H.W. Bush]] campaign put the footage on television with a new soundtrack. The ad is titled "Tank Ride." ## The ad The picture is the news footage, looped: Dukakis in the turret, the tank turning. One account says the campaign used an eleven-second clip, repeated and run backward, with the sound of grinding gears added. Over it a narrator says that Dukakis "has opposed virtually every defense system we developed" and reads a list: aircraft carriers, the stealth bomber, missile programs. The closing argument is that he now wants to be commander in chief and the country cannot afford the risk. Nothing in the pictures was made by the Bush campaign. The Dukakis campaign had staged the event and invited the cameras. ## Who made it and who paid The Bush-Quayle campaign paid for it. Credit for making it is shared and a little contested, which is common with a famous ad. Sig Rogich, the campaign's advertising director, is usually credited with seeing the possibility the night the footage aired. The Museum of the Moving Image credits production to Greg Stevens, whose firm went on to make the [[Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Ads]] in 2004. [[Roger Ailes]], who ran the campaign's media, ordered it onto the air together with the campaign chairman, James Baker. The Bush family's own account gives the credit to Ailes and Rogich. ## Was it true? Not as stated. The Museum of the Moving Image's notes call the ad inaccurate, and a newspaper report at the time pointed out that Dukakis had supported an array of weapons systems even as the ad said he opposed nearly all of them. The list was built from positions on particular programs and presented as a record of opposing defense itself. ## Reaction The Dukakis campaign answered with an ad of its own, called "Counterpunch," in which the candidate turned off a television showing the Bush spot. The evening news then covered the response. One historian described the result as layers of artifice: television news showing a Dukakis commercial that contained a Bush commercial that contained a Dukakis media event. ## What happened next Bush won 40 states. The tank ad ran alongside the [[Willie Horton]] ads in the same weeks, one on defense and the other on crime, and the two are usually discussed together as the campaign that defined Dukakis before he defined himself. Dukakis has said he did not lose because of the tank. The phrase "Dukakis in the tank" outlived the argument: it is still the standard shorthand among campaign staff for a photo opportunity that backfires. ## Why it's on the map - **The opponent supplied the footage.** This is the cleanest example of a technique now universal: wait for the other side to produce an image, then give it a different caption. Every campaign since has had staff whose job is to prevent the candidate from wearing a hat. - **It worked on the news first.** The footage had already been mocked on the evening broadcasts before the ad existed. The ad attached a list of charges to a picture viewers had already laughed at. - **The same people, twice.** The 1988 Bush media operation produced this and the Bush campaign's half of the Horton pair within weeks of each other, and one of its producers reappears behind the Swift Boat ads sixteen years later. The wiki's ad pages keep finding the same few names; see [[Political Ads Hub]]. - **The attack was "not one of us."** Horton said Dukakis was soft on criminals. The tank said he was playing soldier. Both ads were arguments about who is fit to protect the country, the oldest charge in the Republican playbook against Democrats and the one the Swift Boat ads revived. ## Connections - [[Michael Dukakis]] · [[George H.W. Bush]] · [[Roger Ailes]] · [[Lee Atwater]] - [[1988 Presidential Election]] - [[Willie Horton]] — the other half of the 1988 air campaign - [[Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Ads]] — same producer's firm, same line of attack, 2004 - [[Morning in America]] — the previous Republican campaign's ad team, which Rogich helped lead - [[Political Ads Hub]]