Could Hillary be Dukakis Revisited?

James Pinkerton has an interesting article in Newsday regarding the similarities between Hillary Clinton's current troubles over the drivers licenses for illegal aliens issue, and Michael Dukakis' weekend passed for murderers program in Massachusetts. Pinkerton reviews what happened in '88:

In '88, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis was leading the Democratic White House hopefuls. On April 12, he debated his remaining Democratic rivals in Manhattan. One of them, Sen. Al Gore, mentioned the Massachusetts prison furlough plan that Dukakis had defended. Under that particular program, criminals - even murderers sentenced to life in prison without parole - had been granted, Gore noted critically, "weekend passes." But Dukakis dismissed Gore: "Al, the difference between you and me is that I have run a criminal justice system. You haven't."

In fact, grass-roots opposition to such furloughs, coming up from within the mostly Democratic Bay State, had already forced a change in the program, over Dukakis' vehement objections. The Massachusetts governor's tin ear for this criminal justice issue should have been a warning sign to Democrats, but it wasn't. He soon clinched the nomination.

In that same spring of 1988, Dukakis was also beating the Republicans, forging ahead of Vice President George H.W. Bush by 17 points in the polls. Of course Dukakis was ahead; after eight years of Republicans in the White House, voters couldn't be blamed for thinking "time for a change."

But Dukakis wasn't destined to be the change that voters were looking for. He had been fatally wounded, politically, by Gore, back in April; he just didn't know it. That seemingly little issue of the weekend passes for first-degree murderers just wasn't going to go away.

In fact, it was my job, as the director of research - as in "opposition research" - in the George H.W. Bush for President campaign, to help make sure that talk about the passes didn't go away. The Bush campaign took the state matter of prison furloughs and turned it into a national issue. The voters agreed: Bush 41, once written off as a wimpy loser, crushed Dukakis in a November landslide.

So, how does that relate to today?

Now fast-forward to 2007. I'm long out of partisan campaign politics, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton reminds me a lot of Dukakis. As he was two decades ago, she's from a big state, has a lot of money, is ahead in the polls - and she's been grievously injured. This time, the issue isn't prison furloughs, but driver's licenses for illegal immigrants in her "home" state of New York. Clinton has broadly defended Gov. Eliot Spitzer's unpopular plan, even as most New Yorkers have reviled it.

During the Philadelphia debate of Democratic hopefuls on Oct. 30, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, aiming from way back in the Democratic pack, took a stab at Clinton. Her position was "troublesome," he said, adding, "I think the American people are reacting to it."

Yes, they are, but not inside the "nominating wing" of the Democratic Party, which doesn't worry about illegal immigration. So just as Gore failed to get anywhere in criticizing Dukakis 20 years ago, Dodd is not destined to get any lift from his Clinton criticism.

But the country, of course, is bigger than a few lefty-dominated presidential primaries and caucuses. If Spitzer can't sell his licenses-for-illegals plan to New Yorkers in 2007, how can Clinton hope to defend that plan to Americans in 2008?

So once again, Republicans are sniffing political blood.

None of this will matter if the GOP is too timid to use it. If they're smart they'll save this for the general election when it can do the most damage. My fear is they'll be reluctant to go toe-to-toe with Hillary lest she once again play the gender card and accuse the GOP of "hitting the girl". According to Rasmussen 77% of the people disagree with Hillary on the issue of licenses for illegals.

This could be a big issue.