White working class vote in 1988

[maclennanc2]

Why did Dukakis do so well among the white working class, especially compared to his nationwide performance? He basically won the white working class outside the Deep South, and even in Oklahoma and East Texas (including Orange County - home to Vidor, the most racist town in America, looks like that Willy Horton stuff didn't persuade them to vote Republican)

Dukakis seemed Iike a horrible fit for working class voters, a self described "neoliberal" and "technocrat" from Massachusetts with a funny sounding foreign name who had a poor relation with labor and was seen as socially liberal on issues like the death penalty and flag burning. Yet he preformed way better in these areas than Mondale, who was the last real New Dealer nominee.

[maclennanc2]

Yet he preformed way better in these areas than Mondale, who was the last real New Dealer nominee.

Party fatigue and Bush was a fundamentally weaker candidate than Reagan.

Why would that be stronger in working class areas than elsewhere? Look at Maryland, it barely moved it all from 1984-1988.