Dukakis provides perspective on presidential race

(WWLP) - President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are in the final, frenzied hours of the intensely fought Presidential campaign. They're crisscrossing the country, focusing the finale of the campaign on the battleground states.

"When the finish line is in sight, you run as hard as you can, you can rest on Wednesday", says former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis . He certainly knows what it's like: Dukakis was the Democratic Presidential nominee in 1988.

In an interview with 22News Dukakis said that he campaigned through the night from Monday into Tuesday, Election Day.

Dukakis said that even after returning home to Boston on Election Day, he was still doing live satellite interviews with television markets in battleground states during the dinner hour, in search of those last minute votes.

Dukakis lost the Presidential race to Republican Vice President George Bush.

Dukakis told 22News that the worst decision he ever made in the ’88 race was not responding to attack ads from the Bush campaign. He said that the lesson of '88 is that if the other guy comes at you with negative ads and attack campaigns, that you've got to have a strategy in advance for dealing with that. He said you can't simply ignore the attack.

Dukakis, who remains active in Democratic politics, now teaches at Northeastern University in Boston.

To hear the interview with Gov. Dukakis, just click on the video.