Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, September 13th, 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis

was touring a General Dynamics plant that assembled the M1 battle tank.

During his tour, his press team arranged for him

to put on a green helmet and military coveralls

over his suit and kind of ride the tank around

for a bit on the assembly plant.

The cameras were rolling, photographers were

clicking away, and the next day an image of Dukakis aboard the tank with the

helmet kind of like plopped down over his head, this big goofy smile on his face.

That image was everywhere and head, this big goofy smile on his face.

That image was everywhere, and many of you

are probably seeing this image in your head right now.

It kind of came to define Dukakis in many ways.

So here to talk about the Tank photo,

how it very likely contributed to his blown lead and eventual

loss to George H.W. Bush, and in general the question of optics, blown leads, how photo ops can go very, very

wrong. Here with us is Nicole

Hammer of Columbia as always hello nicky hello jody and our special guest we're

very excited to have her on Amy Walter national editor of the Cook Report, host of politics with Amy Walter from

WNYC's takeaway.

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