Several years ago, I met a history professor from the University of Oklahoma who worked on the doomed 1988 presidential campaign for Michael Dukakis. One of the things I asked him was when he (and all his coworkers) realized that Dukakis was not going to win. His answer surprised me: He said they always believed Dukakis was going to win, even as the results were rolling in on election night. “Presidential campaigns exist inside their own reality,” he told me. “They have to. It’s the only way they can work.”
