Michael Dukakis
Former Presidential Candidate
Age at the Time: 55

Originally published Jan. 13, 2001

Well, look, I lost, and it wasn't pleasant. Bush and I had met in early December at what was the Vice President's residence, so I had seen him about a month prior. I was back as governor by then, and I watched the inauguration, obviously, on television. I can't imagine what it might [have been like] for Vice President Gore, who actually won the election, to watch.

It was kind of an interesting time back then because we had gone through eight Reagan years with a lot of controversy and polarization. We were drowning in red ink at the time. Bush had said he wasn't going to raise taxes, in quite a memorable fashion. It wasn't a good time. While the economy was superficially afloat, we were living on a credit card, and everybody knew we were going to go bust.

We had lost our nerve, we had lost our confidence, crime was up, teen pregnancy was up, and we didn't know at the time we were heading into a recession. The new guy today walks into a situation that is far more promising than what we were looking at in 1989.

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