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Dukakis: Change primaries

BY KARLA SCHUSTER | karla.schuster@newsday.com

November 11, 2008

The Electoral College should be abolished and presidential primaries should adhere to the same schedule every election cycle to prevent the battles over states moving up primary dates that marred this year's race, former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis said at Hofstra University yesterday.

Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor who ran for president in 1988, identified the Electoral College and the primary schedules as two key improvements that he hoped could be made before the 2012 presidential election.

"We can do a better job of making the primary process more coherent ... if this keeps up, the Iowa caucuses will be on Thanksgiving," he said, alluding to controversies over whether delegates from Florida and Michigan should be counted after those states moved up their primary dates.

Dukakis called for six regional primaries - two each in February, March and April - that would rotate every four years. "It's a more rational way of doing things," he said.

Dukakis addressed a Hofstra political science class and then delivered a wide-ranging public lecture to about 150 students and faculty as part of "Educate '08," a yearlong lecture series created in conjunction with the school's hosting of last month's final presidential debate.

"I think that third debate may well be one of the more decisive events of the campaign," Dukakis, a Democrat, said. "What you saw that night was that even though [Republican Sen. John] McCain did better than in the previous two debates, the cool, kind of steady, relatively relaxed guy was [Democratic Sen. Barack] Obama."

In analyzing the historic election of Obama as the nation's first black president, Dukakis highlighted two issues: the Obama campaign's grassroots organizing efforts and McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Dukakis described his own campaign's intense vetting of the four finalists to be his vice presidential nominee - Sens. John Glenn, Lloyd Bentsen, Al Gore and Richard Gephardt - including several face-to-face meetings he had with each. McCain met with Palin twice before choosing her, according to news reports.