Michael Dukakis

"Now, I'm not talking about campaign skills here," he said. "I'm talking about political skills. If you're going to be effective in the public sector, you've got to do so in a highly political environment. There's nothing the matter with that. That's the nature of the democratic experience."

Dukakis kicked off this year's Public Health Practice and Leadership Speakers Series, sponsored by the Division of Public Health Practice. His hour-long talk was targeted at students and was delivered with verve and spontaneity, as he described his experiences as a three-time Democratic governor of Massachusetts and a candidate for the U.S. presidency. Dukakis was introduced by Howard Koh, who heads the Division of Public Health Practice and is himself a former state leader, having served as the Commonwealth's Commissioner of Public Health. A web cast has been archived at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/live/dukakis-9142005.html.

This year's series of talks is focused on leadership skills, explained James Ware, Dean for Academic Affairs. That theme, particularly resonant after heavy criticism of the leadership response to Hurricane Katrina, dovetailed with what Dukakis sees as an important skill: the ability to surround oneself with good people.

"We've had a very difficult last couple of weeks-can we agree-in the United States of America" he observed, referring to the hurricane. "It's all about people." The response of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had a fundamental problem in that key officials lacked experience with actual emergency management, he asserted.

"You would think, given the kind of emphasis since 9/11 we've had on the possibility of catastrophe, [that] these kinds of appointments would have been very special appointments, but they weren't, and when disaster struck, the agency was found wanting badly," he said.

Dukakis was just as willing to turn the magnifying glass on himself, saying that he had "terrible" relations with Massachusetts legislators during his first term as governor from 1974-78, despite the fact that he himself had been a legislator for eight years.

"We developed all of this wonderful policy stuff and then dropped it into the laps of the legislature and said, 'Hey, do it.'," recalled Dukakis. "They didn't react very positively to that. You can imagine."

He failed to be reelected in 1978 and embarked on what he jokingly called his four-year, involuntary sabbatical. When he regained the governorship in 1982, he returned with an eye towards working with constituencies, another necessary political skill.

"The effective public leader has to get to know these folks, has to respect them, has to seek to involve them actively in what he or she is doing-from the beginning-in a way that makes them part of the solution and not part of the problem," said Dukakis.

He spoke candidly about his relationship with the press, whom he described as public servants when they are at their best. Good public sector leaders "work hard to not only handle the press skillfully, but also to develop press strategies that advance policy goals," he said.

He told of the necessity of creating those strategies long before challenging situations emerge and described as a "lesson" his decision not to respond to a 1988 Republican media campaign that questioned Dukakis' character when he was running for U.S. president. "Nobody will make that mistake again," he said. Republican nominee George H.W. Bush won.

When asked why the Democratic Party was not winning more elections, Dukakis responded that the party that had invented grassroots organizations had forgotten how to use them. Referring to the Kerry campaign, he suggested that insufficient ground-level outreach meant that potential volunteers for the party went untapped-as did the power of the Internet to organize them.

Dukakis dismissed the notion that getting involved in political life is inherently corrupting and encouraged students to pursue careers in the public sector if they are passionate about the work.

"If you want to make a lot of money, don't go into public service," he said. "Plan to live moderately and get your kicks from the great fulfillment and satisfaction that comes from being in a position to make a difference in the lives of your fellow citizens. There's nothing like it."