HAS John Kerry just blundered into his own Dukakis moment? Of all the lessons learned by Democrats after Michael Dukakis’s disastrous 1988 presidential run, one has been seared into the party’s campaign rulebook like no other: avoid goofy outfits.

The defining image of the Dukakis defeat to George Bush Sr was the ruinous decision to stick the diminutive Massachusetts governor in an M1 battle tank, his head swamped by an oversize helmet, in an attempt to portray him as a tough-guy.

He looked like a schoolboy rather than a fearless commander-in-chief, and a nation guffawed. Mr Dukakis never recovered.

So what on earth was Mr Kerry doing this week wandering around in a hooded jumpsuit during a visit to the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral, an outfit that one newspaper said made him look like an oversize condom (or Woody Allen as a sperm in Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sex . . .)?

Republicans seized on Mr Kerry’s sartorial hara-kari, comparing it to Mr Dukakis in his tank. They emailed the photos to reporters under the headline “Earth to Kerry”.

Kerry aides counterattacked, circulating pictures of President Bush wearing matching kimonos with John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, and picking his nose at a baseball game: just the kind of vigorous political debate voters are looking for.

Who’s the donkey?

THIS year’s most spectacular act of political self-immolation was Howard Dean’s Iowa scream.

It is easy to forget that until Mr Kerry’s unexpected primary victory in Iowa in January, the former Vermont Governor was the runaway favourite to be Mr Bush’s challenger this year. This should have been his big week to accept the nomination.

Instead, he has come to Boston, no longer the fire-breathing Bush-basher that so terrified the Democrat establishment, but more of a clown and unafraid to indulge in self-parody. The delegates are loving it.

Yesterday he excelled in a game of toss-the-donkey at life-size cutouts of such Republican hate figures as Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, and Mr Bush, before letting out a toned-down version of the “Yee-aagh” that hastened his demise.

Dr Dean even mulled over taking another shot at the White House.

Asked whether he might run again, he said: “I hope I don’t have to think about it until 2012.” But he admitted that he has discussed it with his wife. She probably screamed.

Moving request

Not all states are created equal. Delegates from key battleground states, including Ohio, Florida and Michigan, have been housed in the best hotels and have ringside seats in the convention hall. The most exciting guest speakers attend their breakfasts. Those from committed Bush states, like Texas or Idaho, struggle in from motels miles from central Boston. And for the Democrats Abroad delegation? The message is move home: they have the worst seats in the house.

Banner headline

AMERICANS tuning into TV convention coverage will see giant electronic banners for the major television networks, but not al-Jazeera. The Arab network, which has angered the White House by its coverage of the Iraq war, was ordered by organisers to remove a huge banner it had placed near the speakers’ podium.

And finally . . .

The Washington Post is publishing 10,000 copies a day of a special convention issue under the banner: “ELECTION 2000” — perhaps a bad omen for Democrats.

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