Presidential Elections 1988

Penn State football Coach Joe Paterno has been picked to deliver a seconding speech for Vice President George Bush at the Republican National Convention, triggering a controversy in Pennsylvania. "I'm livid about it," said state Sen. Robert J. Mellow (D-Lackawanna County). "The institution (Penn State) has received tremendous bipartisan support, and the tax dollars it receives are not Democratic or Republican tax dollars. "I don't think it's proper.

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider reviving a politically charged lawsuit that alleges federal officials conspired on the eve of the 1988 election to silence an inmate who claims to have sold drugs to a young Dan Quayle in the 1970s. If the justices overturn the lower court, the lawsuit would be cleared for trial, reviving allegations at a time when the former vice president could be campaigning for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination. No one disagrees that on Nov.

A Senate subcommittee chairman charged Friday that a federal prisoner was improperly placed in isolation on the eve of the 1988 presidential election to keep him from claiming that he sold marijuana to Dan Quayle in the 1970s. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of a Governmental Affairs subcommittee, said Brett Kimberlin, a convicted drug smuggler and bomber, was ordered into the "hole" by the director of the U.S.

The Justice Department said Friday its inspector general will investigate allegations that a federal prisoner was silenced during the 1988 campaign when he sought to publicly charge that he once sold marijuana to Vice President Dan Quayle. Inspector General Richard J. Hankinson agreed to conduct an investigation to determine why Bureau of Prisons Director J.

An increasingly militant series of anti-abortion demonstrations aimed at Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis turned violent for the first time Tuesday as shouting demonstrators and Dukakis supporters engaged in a shoving match here, partially disrupting Dukakis' speech. Ignoring the candidate's appeals for calm, roughly a dozen demonstrators shouted "Abortion is murder!" at Dukakis, preventing him from being heard in a crowded Polish union hall in this Chicago suburb.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. Dan Quayle has a net worth of roughly $1.2 million, but stands to gain income later in his life from a family trust worth an estimated $600 million, according to financial disclosure forms released by his office Friday. Quayle's largest personal asset is his home in McLean, Va., a wealthy suburb of Washington.

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider reviving a politically charged lawsuit that alleges federal officials conspired on the eve of the 1988 election to silence an inmate who claims to have sold drugs to a young Dan Quayle in the 1970s. If the justices overturn the lower court, the lawsuit would be cleared for trial, reviving allegations at a time when the former vice president could be campaigning for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination. No one disagrees that on Nov.

Less than three weeks ago, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis presented his old friend Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton with one of the most important roles at the Democratic convention--making his presidential nominating speech Wednesday night. It quickly became clear that Clinton, 41, was faced with a multi-faceted task. The speech not only had to enter Dukakis' name, it had to refocus the attention of the convention on Dukakis after the Rev.

The 1988 Democratic and Republican platforms are dramatically different in vision, in tone, in length and, perhaps most important, in objective. The Democratic platform is a mere 4,500 words, a statement of principles, less specific than any platform in recent memory. Republicans say it could "fit on the back of a postcard." It is "an effort to combat the problem the party had in the past," said William Schneider, the Los Angeles Times' political consultant. "Platforms . . .

Four days before the 1988 presidential election, Bureau of Prisons Director J. Michael Quinlan ordered a federal prisoner be placed in detention and barred from talking to reporters about allegations that the prisoner had once sold marijuana to now-Vice President Dan Quayle, according to a Bureau of Prisons lawyer's letter disclosed in federal court this week. In a letter to a lawyer representing convicted drug smuggler Brett C. Kimberlin, Bureau of Prisons regional counsel Carolyn A.

A Senate subcommittee chairman charged Friday that a federal prisoner was improperly placed in isolation on the eve of the 1988 presidential election to keep him from claiming that he sold marijuana to Dan Quayle in the 1970s. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of a Governmental Affairs subcommittee, said Brett Kimberlin, a convicted drug smuggler and bomber, was ordered into the "hole" by the director of the U.S.

Like a pol pumping hands at a fund-raiser, Richard Ben Cramer has the gig down cold: Say hello ("Good to meeetcha!"), sign the book ("Glad you liiiked it!") and move on to the next customer ("Hey, howyadooin?"). Never mind that he's 30 minutes late to his own party. Or that he burst into a Capitol Hill bookstore with sweat pouring off him. The bedraggled author has an excuse . . . just like any candidate running behind. "I couldn't find a cab," Cramer says breathlessly.

Two words dampen the enthusiasm of many Democrats luxuriating in Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton's huge lead in the polls over President Bush. Michael Dukakis. Four years ago, Dukakis--like Clinton--came roaring out of a Democratic National Convention with a seemingly insurmountable lead over Bush, the soon-to-be Republican nominee. Then Bush plucked James A.

Ask aides to Bill Clinton what they hope to achieve at the 1992 Democratic convention, and a surprising model springs immediately to their lips: the 1988 Republican convention that nominated George Bush. If Clinton can do in New York this week what Bush did in New Orleans four years ago, then a Democratic candidate who only recently seemed headed for oblivion could retrieve his fortunes and win the presidency, his strategists believe.

When Sen. Al Gore Jr. decided to run for the presidency in 1987, he bypassed more conventional issues and picked the environment as his major platform plank. "When I kicked off my campaign in Washington," recalls the Tennessee Democrat, "I said the environmental crisis was the most important challenge facing our civilization." He did well in the South's "Super Tuesday" primaries, but as the crowded Democratic race wore on, Gore lost momentum.

Federal officials have closed an investigation of the 1988 election's notorious Willie Horton political ad without resolving whether there was improper coordination between the Bush campaign team and the ad's sponsors. The Federal Election Commission split, 3 to 3, along party lines on whether to close the case, which involved a supposedly independent group called the National Security Political Action Committee and an ad that became known as a symbol of racial politics.

Republican nominee George Bush won an overwhelming victory over Democrat Michael S. Dukakis in Tuesday's presidential election despite a late surge of support for the Massachusetts governor among previously undecided voters and wayward Democrats. Late returns showed Bush winning a solid majority of the popular vote nationwide and chalking up substantially more than the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker don't mind sharing a dressing room. They're just an old happily married couple who happen to be at the same success level in their careers--a rarity in Hollywood. But it wasn't always so. "Ten years ago, my career was taking off," Eikenberry remembers, "and Mike's wasn't, so he went to a psychiatrist to help him work through it." Eventually "L.A. Law" came along and evened everything out.

Dan Quayle for six months waged a quiet campaign to get George Bush to choose him as a running mate in 1988, the Washington Post quoted the vice president as saying. Quayle told the newspaper: "You don't run for vice president, but . . . there are ways you can be put on the 'available' chart. . . . You keep expectations down and do things as quietly and subtly as possible."

On his way to the presidency in August, 1988, George Bush was scornful when it came to campaign pledges. "The other party promises," he pronounced as he accepted the Republican nomination. "We deliver." But time has shown his goals to be not so easily met. As the economy has fallen short of what Americans had been led to expect, so too has Bush--and their fates are closely linked. What sometimes sounded modest just three years ago now can seem to be all but out of reach.