Dukakis: Donald Trump Is a ‘Gift from God’ to Democrats

As long as they don't screw this up.

Photograph by Webb Chappell for "Talking Trash with Mike Dukakis"

Photograph by Webb Chappell for “Talking Trash with Mike Dukakis

Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis wants the streets of Boston cleared of litter. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wanted Fifth Avenue cleared of those unseemly disabled veterans. Dukakis is the least disliked presidential nominee of the modern era, and Trump, if nominated, the most.

The two men are as ideologically opposed as can be. So it’s hardly a surprise that the Brookline resident called Trump a “gift from God to the Democratic Party, if we take advantage of its,” in a recent interview with WGBH’s Boston Public Radio.

Dukakis added that Trump’s runaway unpopularity could result in the Democrats regaining control of Congress, as well. “This has got to be a 50-state campaign,” the 82-year-old said.

Though he admitted he’s “the last guy in the world to try and advise anyone on messaging,” given his landslide defeat to George H.W. Bush in 1988, Dukakis said that Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton and others in the party ought to reframe their messaging on complex issues like health care to relate to the working class voter.

“I think we’ve got to understand that that’s a core constituency of ours and we’ve got to speak to them,” he said, “and I don’t think we’re going that as well as we should be—but this is a good opportunity to do it.”