When I'm talking about grassroots organization, I'm not talking about parachuting kids in with two weeks to go from seven states over. I'm talking about a precinct organization with a precinct captain in every precinct and block captains - maybe a half a dozen per precinct - who systematically make contact with every single voting household in that precinct, beginning early. This is not something you do in the last couple of weeks. You have to start months in advance. And you do it on a 50-state basis. I don't care if the state is red, blue or polka dot.

We didn't do that. We didn't even do it in the battleground states. That isn't to take away from what otherwise I thought was a very strong campaign with a very strong candidate. I thought John did a good job and was a much better candidate than I was, frankly. I think his campaign was much better than mine.

We still aren't doing this grassroots job. I know there are people who don't think that old-fashioned grassroots campaigning works. They're just plain wrong. They've never done it, they don't understand it. And that's what we have to do beginning now.

I think the fact that Howard Dean is the new National Chairman is a plus. I think he understands this. He's committed to it. I and a lot of other people are going to do everything we can to work with him beginning now, because we're talking about an important Congressional year in 2006.

I think the President is handing us a whole flock of issues, Social Security on a platter. So now's the time to get going, and that's true whether you're campaigning for President, Congress, Governor or whatever. It's just critically important that we Democrats do it.

And there isn't any lack of people out there. Kerry had 2 million contributors. We only have 160,000 precincts in the entire country, so that's an awful lot of potential block captains and precinct captains. But you've got to ask people to do it, you've got to tell them to do it.

Thanks to the internet, you can do this for virtually nothing. When I did it as Governor, it really cost money because we really had to put a lot of money into this grassroots campaign. Thanks to the internet, once somebody sends you fifty bucks he's online. From that point on getting material, keeping in touch with him, getting him to meetings locally, and this kind of stuff, and even literature. It's all on the machine. [It's] safer, it doesn't cost a nickel. I think that's what we must do, and the time to begin doing that is right now, as we get ready for the 2006 cycle.

Singer: A number of pundits have credited the Bush campaign with at least one thing on the grassroots level and that is creating sort of what you're talking about, although using a lot more paid operatives. But they had a pretty large base of volunteers and a very strong organization. Do you think that the Democrats need to learn from Ken Mehlman's machine?

Dukakis: Republicans don't do what I'm talking about. They do what they do pretty well. They target their vote and get it out. If the other side isn't doing what I'm talking about, then that kind of a campaign is going to be effective. But don't make the mistake of assuming that the Republicans were doing what I'm talking about on a 50-state, all-precinct basis. They weren't. In fact they weren't even doing it on an all-precinct basis in the battleground states. But they went after their vote intensely. They did it in a variety of ways, more power to them.

But if we're doing the kind of genuine all-precinct, all-household campaign, and that means you knock on everybody's door - you don't pass up the Republicans and the independents - everybody's door, and you do it in a very systematic way, that will always beat a targeting campaign. On the other hand, if we're not doing that, then an effective targeting campaign will win at the margins, and that's what's happened. It happened in 2000. It happened again in 2004. But I don't have any doubt that if we do this job and do it well, supported now by this wonderful new technology, which makes it so much easier to do this - virtually on a cost-free basis - we're going to win elections.

Singer: [In] 2004, like 1988, the term "Massachusetts liberal" was used as a pejorative by a Connecticut-bred Texas transplant. What do you make of that historical twist of fate?

Dukakis: Richard Nixon was accusing Jack Kennedy - I don't know if he called him a "Massachusetts liberal" - he just called him a liberal. This has been a persistent theme. The Republican attack on Democrats that we're soft on national defense and that kind of stuff was used again. We've seen this now for a long time. So there's nothing new about it.

On the other hand, Kerry and a guy named Nader, who after all is a "Connecticut liberal," got 49% of the vote. That's one point short of 50. And had we done this grassroots job, I have no doubt that John Kerry would now be in the White House. That's always going to be used. I don't care whether the candidate comes from Massachusetts or Montana, Republicans are going to try to use that.

Our challenge, which I'm sorry to say I didn't meet very effectively - I thought John did much more effectively - our challenge is just to make sure that a) we don't let them get away with this, and b) we help people understand that these folks have no interest in average Americans, that they're basically of, for and by the wealthiest two percent of the population, and when it comes to the kind of things that the vast majority of middle class Americans care about - decent wages and good jobs, basic health insurance for working people and their families, and good schools for kids and those kinds of things - those people are out to lunch.

It's always going to be a challenge, but I don't care where the Democrat comes from, he or she will be accused of this, and the challenge obviously is to know it's coming, we anticipate it, and we have a very carefully thought out strategy to deal with it.

Singer: Just one more question about 1988. You enlarged the Democratic coalition from two states in the previous election to ten states. Eight of them have stayed in the Democratic column in every election since, which is quite a feat. What lessons might you pass on in enlarging and growing that coalition to maybe grow it a little bit more and make the same lasting change that you did in 1988?

Dukakis: First let me say this: I think we can grow it a lot more, not a little more. Secondly, at the risk of sounding monotonous, obviously it has everything to do with our ability to get out there with people.

We lost the fourteen poorest states in the county. And we lost them in 2000. There's something wrong when the Democratic Party is losing the fourteen poorest states in the country. It's because we've had no presence there.

It's not because there isn't support. I talked to Howard Dean the other day. He'd just come back from Mississippi. He said, "Boy, have we got work to do." I said, "Sure, we haven't been down there. We haven't been taking it seriously." But in the state of Alabama alone, Kerry had in excess of 10,000 contributors. That's in Alabama.

On the other hand, while the contribution is welcome - and by the way, clearly on the fundraising side, not only were we competitive with the Republicans, I think we out raised them with a very broad base of relatively modest contributors, which is exactly the best way to raise money. But not to have - we had no grassroots campaign in North Carolina even though our Vice Presidential candidate was from North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, these places. Iowa, we lost by a handful of votes, Iowa is a state I took by a margin of ten percent over Bush's father.

There are about sixteen pink states where the margin of victory was relatively modest, and where the kind of effort I'm talking about could turn that around in a minute. But it's got to begin now. You don't do this in the last month of the campaign. You don't do it with folks from California showing up in Nevada and Arizona knocking on doors. You've got to have Nevadans and Arizonans knocking on the doors, and the folks in California should have been back here working on this healthcare referendum, which would have provided health insurance for another couple million working people and their families in the state. So that's why it's got to begin now. And, as I say, I think under Dean's leadership we've got a real opportunity to do that.

Singer: 2008 will come on the heels of eight years of Republican control of the White House [like in 1988] - I guess I will bring up 1988 again - when you came out of a crowded field to get the nomination. There's probably going to be quite a crowd on both sides of the debate, both in the Republican and Democratic Parties. Do you see anyone right now who's a frontrunner?

Dukakis: Too early. It's absolutely a waste of time to speculate on who's going to be the candidate in 2008. And point of fact, it weakens us to do so. There'll be plenty of time to get into that.

The next two years ought to involve intensive grassroots organizing, party building, recruiting, and the running of first rate candidates for Congress. I think this administration is just handing us issues on a silver platter. This effort on the part of the President to wreck Social Security is politically a gift from God. And it's not the only [one]. Refusing to increase the minimum wage, reneging on commitments [for] public education, trashing the environment - these kinds of things should be grist* for our mill.

So the job right now, and this includes all of the potential candidates for the Presidency - I like the fact that John Kerry announced the other day that he was going to be devoting a substantial amount of his time and money to helping this grassroots effort now. That's what we ought to be doing.

Once the Congressional elections are over, I'm sure we'll have six, eight, ten possible candidates, more power to them. That'll be the time to start getting into that speculation. The question is beginning on the first of January, 2007, will we have this 160,000 precinct organization in place, battle tested, and ready to go for 2008? That's the challenge.

Singer: You're speaking with a lot of charisma over the phone right now and you are saying a lot of the right things that certainly made you popular within the Democratic Party when you ran and I'm sure would still make you popular in the future. Yet you weren't really tapped by the Kerry campaign and by previous campaigns, and to my knowledge you're not running for anything right now.

Dukakis: If I want to stay married, no.

Both: [Laughter]

Singer: How can you get your voice out more? You have a lot of great ideas and experience. I'm sure people are willing to listen.

Dukakis: I speak up from time to time. I do Op-Ed pieces, I'm on national television.

The focus of a lot of my work these days is both healthcare and transportation. I was on the Amtrak board for five years, obviously very unhappy about what the administration is trying to do, not just to Amtrak, but its lack of vision when it comes to serious investment in the national rail passenger system and first class transportation. All you have to do is spend ten minutes in Southern California. If you don't believe that we've got to start emphasizing inner-city rail and much improved public transportation then there's something wrong with you. So on those issues I'm really out there and outspoken and so forth.

When it comes to the party itself, I think I can make my greatest contribution by working on the kinds of things that we've been talking about. Obviously I'm a believer in this. It had everything to do with my own political success. I share an enormous amount of disappointment in the fact that my former Lieutenant Governor - who has been my Senator for 20 years, a terrific guy, and who I thought was going to win, quite frankly - didn't make it having to put up with what I think is the worst national administration I've ever lived under.

So I'm going to do everything I can, so far as my party is concerned, to deliver the message. And I'm out speaking to Democratic groups four times a week on this subject, both here and elsewhere. But I think that's where I can make my maximum contribution. And then when it comes to policy stuff, I'm going to focus on those issues where I know something and where I can advance the debate.

Singer: You brought up Howard Dean a couple times and speaking with him. Are you being more utilized by him? Will you play a larger role-

Dukakis: As soon as I get back to Boston, we're going to sit down and I'm going to get myself and a number of people who understand this and worked for me and have worked for me and were involved in the Kerry campaign and some of them in the Dean campaign and I'm going to do everything I can to be a missionary for him and for the party when it comes to getting his message out.

Singer: Governor Dukakis, it's quite an honor to speak with you. I very much appreciate your time.

Dukakis: Thanks so much.

Singer: You too.