How much would Dukakis have won by if not for the media's bias?

[Gabu]

The fact that he told Bernard Shaw that he wouldn't retaliate if a thug raped his own wife pretty much sealed his fate.

He never said this!

To paraphrase the question, he responded, passionless, that he would not favor the death penalty for someone who raped and killed his wife. 

That's kind of different than saying that he wouldn't retaliate.

It was an extremely unfair question, in my mind.  Any candidate who didn't look shocked and then exclaim "I would have killed the bastard right there myself!" would have inevitably looked bad.  Granted, Dukakis looked about as bad as anyone possibly could have in his response to the question, but I still maintain that it was extremely unfair.  It would have been, quite simply, impossible for an anti-death penalty candidate to answer the question in a way that would not make him appear either as an uncompassionate monster or as an inconsistent waffler.

[Gabu]

Can someone explain to me what the whole deal about Dukakis in a tank was about.  I've seen the pictures.  What's the big deal?

He did look awkward, but only when I view the picture in an historical context.  I agree with you.  I do not see the significance, although that is probably because it epitomised the flow of the campaign, which we're both too young to know much about.

From what I understand (I evidently don't know first-hand, being 3 at the time), it was not so much the picture as what the picture represented: a guy who came off as goofy and unfit to lead a country.