Michael Dukakis rode the subway to work as governor of Massachusetts
Throughout his second spell as governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis took the subway to his office every day, and Bostonians still credit him with renovating the city's trains and buses. The son of Greek immigrants became the longest-serving governor in the state's history and, in 1988, the Democratic nominee for president.
He was born in Brookline in 1933. His father, from Edremit in Turkey with family roots on Lesbos, reached Massachusetts in 1912 and within twelve years had earned a Harvard medical degree, going on to deliver babies as an obstetrician; his mother came from an Aromanian family in Greece. As a high school senior aged 17 he ran the Boston Marathon. After Swarthmore he postponed Harvard Law School to enlist in the army, serving as a radio operator in South Korea with a unit supporting the United Nations armistice delegation.
His first term as governor, won in 1974, went badly. He had promised a lead pipe guarantee of no new taxes and reversed it, and his attempt to dismantle the Metropolitan District Commission, a patronage-heavy agency with its own police and maritime patrol, failed and made enemies. His own party refused to renominate him in 1978, a defeat his wife Kitty called a public death. Memorable moments survived: appearing on television in a sweater during the Blizzard of 1978, and a 1977 exoneration of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti.
He returned by beating Edward King in a 1982 rematch and governed through a high-tech boom dubbed the Massachusetts Miracle, with fellow governors voting him the most effective in 1986. That record carried him past a primary field including Jesse Jackson, Joe Biden and Al Gore, and John Williams wrote a fanfare for him at his father-in-law's request.
With Lloyd Bentsen as running mate, he lost the 1988 election to George H. W. Bush, carrying ten states and Washington, D.C. He became the first Greek-American and first Greek Orthodox major-party nominee, later sat on Amtrak's board and taught political science. Since Jimmy Carter's death in 2024 he has been the oldest living presidential nominee.
Source: Michael Dukakis
