Professors Return to Harvard From the Campaign Trail

In his office at the Kennedy School of Government sits a large Dukakis '88 portrait--unhung.

After travelling 600,000 miles and spending 20 months on the road with Michael S. Dukakis as the governor's right-hand man during the long and gruelling quest for the presidency, Nicholas T. Mitropoulis did not take off for Washington in January as he had hoped.

Instead, he returned to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he had previously served as the associate director of the Institute of Politics.

Along with Mitropoulis came a cadre of other top advisors from the Massachusetts governor's ill-fated campaign. Professor of Law Susan R. Estrich--Dukakis' campaign manager--resumed full-time occupancy in her office in Griswold Hall at the Law School, and Professor of Law Christopher F. Edley--the governor's national issues director--joined her in the trip back to Cambridge.

And following Mitropoulis through the Kennedy School's post-election revolving doors were Hale Champion--Dukakis' chief of staff--and Heather P. Campion--Kitty Dukakis' director of operations.

Insiders

Harvard insiders from the campaign staff were joined by many others at the University who, with the governor's 40-state election loss last November, were also forced to give up hopes of going to the nation's capital--at least for another four years.

Scores of policy advisors to the Dukakis campaign--including Kennedy School Dean Graham T. Allison '62, Ford Foundation Professor of International Security Joseph S. Nye, Jr. and Ropes Professor of Political Economy Lawrence H. Summers--had to resign themselves to an extended stint in the Harvard "liberal boutique" of campaign rhetoric.

But most of Dukakis' aides and advisors who came from Harvard say that the experience of working on a national campaign was worth the months sacrificed for the effort.

Mitropoulis, referred to by many on the campaign trail as the governor's "body-glove" because he accompanied Dukakis almost every single minute of the day--including the governor's daily power walks--says that his adventures on the road were invaluable.

"To spend 85 nights in Iowa and to be living on people's farms was really an eye-opening experience for me," says the native Cantabridgian, who grew up in Central Square. A close personal friend of the governor's, Mitropoulis adds that what he most appreciated about his election experience was the opportunity to work with the eclectic set of people involved in the national political campaign.

"The greatest gift is the people you meet," Mitropoulis says. "Watching young people work on the campaign especially made me optimistic about where the country is going."

Estrich, despite the negative publicity she received as the top strategist for the losing side, agrees. "I'm very proud of how far we came and how well we did," she says. "There are very few things as important as who leads this country."

A veteran of national campaigns--she was Walter F. Mondale's senior policy advisor in 1984--Estrich adds that the political and personal lessons of Campaign '88 were many.

"The lesson I learned is that in politics, values count more than particular policies or positions in terms of the way the public looks at candidates," Estrich says. "Unfortunately, the Bush campaign did a better job of communicating its version of Dukakis' values than our campaign did of communicating his values."

Her experience running Dukakis' operation bolstered Estrich's scholarship, as well. Her newly acquired knowledge of, and experience with, election law has been an area of growth which she has been able to share directly with students in her class. "It made me a better teacher," she says.

Experience

Others agree that their campaign experience helped them on the Harvard job.

"Any experience which requires that you work from 5:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. makes someone a very efficient worker," says Campion, the public liaison director at the Kennedy School. "A day at the Kennedy School which goes from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. begins to seem pretty easy."

From Labor Day through election day, Campion took a leave of absence from the Kennedy School to run Kitty Dukakis' operation.

Kitty Dukakis' unwavering dedication to her husband's electoral ambitions have left in indelible mark on Campion, she says.

"Kitty did real campaigning," Campion says, explaining that the governor's wife travelled to several key states each day to campaign on behalf of her husband. At the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta--during which time Campion ran Kitty Dukakis' entire convention operation--the prospective First Lady surprised many by meeting with delegates throughout most of the days, Campion says.

Most notable in Kitty Dukakis' performance throughout the campaign was a speech she gave on AIDS in San Francisco, in which she laid out new policy herself--the speech marked the first time the spouse of a candidate had done that.

"I think she broke a lot of ground by campaigning on her own--on the issues--and doing as much national press as possible," Campion says.

But while campaign war stories have now entered the nostalgic phase at Harvard, most agree that returning to the world of academia was a welcome change from the rough and tumble world of electoral politics.

"There aren't many places left in this society where everybody agrees that government is a good thing," Champion said when he returned to the school in February. "At the Kennedy School, almost everybody agrees it is."