Dukakis will take the compliment, even if it’s backhanded

By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff

It’s hard to imagine a bigger surprise winner in last night’s Republican Presidential debate. But Michael Dukakis, the patron saint of Massachusetts liberals, might have taken top honors.

For those who didn’t watch, Texas Governor Rick Perry used Dukakis’s record to deliver his biggest zing of the night against Governor Mitt Romney: “Michael Dukakis created jobs three times faster than you did, Mitt.”

Romney returned the jab by comparing Perry’s jobs record with that of with George W. Bush, a far milder insult among Republican primary voters.

Reached by phone at his Northeastern University office this morning, Dukakis said he didn’t watch the debate last night because he was busy participating in a seminar series about the economy. (Once a wonk, always a wonk!) He read about it this morning, shortly before the congratulatory e-mails began flooding his inbox.

“All I know is that Perry was nice enough to compare my economic record with Romney’s,” Dukakis said. “But then, it would be very difficult not to do better than Romney’s.”

Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, said he’s had his fill of debates. “We had 45 debates and I made 39 of them, so debates are not exactly at the top of my TV watching priority list,” Dukakis said. “And since I find this field of candidates difficult to take, to put it mildly, I may tune in [only] occasionally…”

Dukakis, never one to miss a chance to discuss his record, quickly pointed out that unemployment in Massachusetts was 2.4 percent when he was governor. So even if the Perry compliment was backhanded, he’ll take it.

“I’ll accept it for what it was,” he said. “If Perry wants to acknowledge that, that’s fine by me.”