Writing about how Hillary has tried to "ghettoize" Obama as the "black" candidate, Mickey makes a smart analogy:
Here we thought we were getting the Mondale/Hart campaign of 1984--without Mondale's pleasantness or Hart's weirdness--and instead we get the Dukakis campaign of 1988, in which a slightly tedious, marginally likeable elite liberal established his mainstream (white) bona fides by running around the country thumping Jesse Jackson.
I think Hillary's too savvy to repeat the tank error, though.
P.S. The rest of Mickey's post--in which he advises Obama to escape from the ghetto by shifting right on immigration or affirmative action--reads like self-parody. I'm just surprised he didn't suggest that Obama go negative on Jeffrey Toobin.
P.P.S. Fun TNR-Dukakis fact: I first met my future boss Frank Foer in the summer of 1988, when we were both 14-year-old volunteers on the Dukakis campaign. Yes, we were very cool kids.
P.P.P.S. Bloggingheads.tv evidently has a P.R. operation (!?), which has called my attention to this diavlog in which Mickey expands on his idea that Obama would help himself in California by moving right on immigration. In the same clip, Bob Wright notes Mickey's aforementioned self-parodic tendencies.