Michael Dukakis back at the DNC Video

Michael Dukakis back at the DNC Video Transcript

>> Hey we're going through the security checkpoint. Look who I run into, Governor Michael Dukakis. Good to see you.

>> Good to see you.

>> Tell me how you, I can't you imagine.

>> How do I feel, it's been 20 years, could you believe that.

>> I can't believe it and so this obviously brings back a lot of memories and some disappointments I imagine, right.

>> No question. Well we run a great primary campaign and screw up the final, that' the problem.

>> Why do you think you screwed it up?

>> Because I guess I was the first of the Democrats to face this Republican attack machine and just did a terrible job of dealing with it. They did it again with Carey, and they're doing it again with Obama. This time I think--

>> Do you think the Democrats are getting smarter about that?

>> Oh yeah I don't think there's any question about it. The problem is that you got to fight fire with fire.

>> Well you know that James Carvo [phonetic] said that the Democrats aren't coming out strong enough. They're not coming out, you know, really attacking the McCain enough, do you agree with that?

>> I think you got to be strong but at the same time you've got to give people a good sense of why you'd be a much better president.

>> But isn't that hard to do both at the same time? You know Obama talked about having a high minded campaign and really he attracted a lot of attention and support by saying that, and it seems to me it's really hard to balance both things. You wanna kind of play fair and stay above the nastiness, and at the same time you're being encouraged to hit hard and hit back.

>> I'll tell you, I think you got to make a character issue on the guy that you are running against. If it was McCain who said he wanted to run high minded campaign, first thing he does is hire a disciple of Karl Rove, this guy Schmidt to run his campaign and we're getting a typical Karl Rove campaign. I think you gonna make that initiative. This is McCain's responsibility. He is the guy that's going--

>> At the same time, you know some of their tactics seem to be working, right?

>> Yeah, temporarily, but let me say this one. Obama and Biden didn't fall out off the Christmas tree yesterday. I mean they know what's hitting them and they know what's going to hit them, and I think they're ready for this. At the same time, we've gotta organize at the precinct level like we've never organized before. Every state, every precinct, we got 200,000, every one of the precinct captain. If we do that, we're gonna win this thing.

>> Yeah because the Republicans have really out organized the Democrats for many years but it seems like this year is different.

>> Well they have nothing in the field. You know very dispirited people at them. They ought to be, I mean we've had eight years of, I think the worst national administration in my lifetime, but that doesn't mean you gonna win it automatically. You've got to be down there in those precincts knocking on those doors.

>> When you're here in Denver and you see all of the supla, do you ever wonder, gee what if?

>> Look I owe the American people an apology. If I've beaten the old man and I've never heard of the kid, we wouldn't be in this mess. So it's all my fault, I feel that very, very strongly. So this is an important election for us, let me tell you that.

>> Alright, well Michael Dukakis, good to talk to you.

>> Great to see you.

>> Yeah, thank you so much.

>> Okay, great to see you.

>> Great running in to you. See you later.

>> Kids get younger and younger all the time. Good to see you.

>> Make sure you don't cut that.