Date: Nov 03, 2008

Michael Dukakis, 1988 Democratic Presidential Nominee, to Speak at Hofstra

Former Massachusetts governor to look back on 2008 presidential election

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY – Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, will present his analysis of the 2008 presidential election at Hofstra on Monday, November 10, 2008, at 4 p.m. in the Monroe Lecture Center Theater, California Avenue, South Campus.

The program, sponsored by the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs, Hofstra University Honors College, School of Communication, and the Professional Organization in Speech Education (P.O.I.S.E.), is free and open to the public. For more information, please call (516) 463-5616.
 
Mr. Dukakis appears as part of Hofstra’s year-long Educate ’08 program, launched by Hofstra after the Commission on Presidential Debates announced last November that the third and final 2008 presidential debate would be held at the University on October 15, 2008. An estimated 3,500 journalists came to Hofstra from throughout the nation and from around the world to cover the debate, which focused on the economy and domestic issues. Educate ’08 is sponsored by the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, The John D. Miller Fund at the Long Island Community Foundation, and Sondra and David S. Mack.

Mr. Dukakis, who ran unsuccessfully for president against then Vice President George H. W. Bush, was twice governor of Massachusetts from1974-79 and from 1983-91. Since June of 1991, he has been a visiting professor at Northeastern University's political science department and has also taught in the senior executive program for State and Local managers at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has also taught for the past three years at Florida Atlantic University. His research has focused on national health care policy reform and the lessons that national policy makers can learn from state reform efforts. He has authored articles on the subject for the Journal of American Health Policy (1992); the Yale Law and Policy Review (1992); the New England Journal of Medicine (1992); and Compensation and Benefits Management (1993). In addition, he co-taught with Northeastern Professor David Rochefort a graduate seminar in national health policy reform that included a series of public forums and an all-day conference that culminated in the publication of Insuring American Health for the Year 2000, a Northeastern University publication.

Mr. Dukakis graduated from Swarthmore College (1955) and Harvard Law School (1960). He served for two years in the United States Army, 16 months of which he spent with the Support Group to the U.N. Delegation to the Military Armistice Commission in Munsan, Korea. He began his political career as an elected Town Meeting Member in the town of Brookline. He was elected chairman of his town's Democratic organization in 1960 and won a seat in the Massachusetts legislature in 1962. He served four terms as a legislator.

In 1970 he was the Massachusetts Democratic Party's nominee for lieutenant governor and the running mate of Boston Mayor Kevin White in their unsuccessful gubernatorial race. Dukakis won his party's nomination for governor in 1974 and won the gubernatorial election that year.  He inherited a record deficit and record high unemployment and is generally credited with digging Massachusetts out of one of its worst financial and economic crises in history. He was defeated in the Democratic Primary in 1978 by Edward King.

Mr. Dukakis came back to defeat King in 1982 and was re-elected to an unprecedented third four-year term in 1986 by one of the largest margins in history. In 1986 his colleagues in the National Governors Association voted him the most effective governor in the Nation. Dukakis won the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1988. Soon after his defeat, he announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election as governor and served out his final two years.

Educate '08 is an unprecedented series of lectures, conferences, artistic performances and exhibitions, town hall meetings and interactive forums focused on the issues, history and politics of presidential elections.  Educate '08 provides our students, faculty and the entire surrounding community with access to the newsmakers, scholars and policymakers who have unique insight and knowledge of the American political system.  Many of our programs and events are free and open to the public. Notable speakers included George Stephanopoulos; former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations; Mary Matalin and James Carville; David Gergen; William Kristol and Maureen Dowd; Charlie Cook; and many other scholars, historians, journalists and policymakers. 

Hofstra will continue to offer programs related to the 2008 presidential election during the first 100 days of the new administration.
 
Find out more about Educate '08 by visiting www.hofstra.edu/educate08

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students can choose from more than 140 undergraduate and 155 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business, communication, education and allied human services, and honors studies, as well as a School of Law. With a student-faculty ratio of 14-to-1, our professors teach small classes averaging 22 students that emphasize interaction, critical thinking and analysis.