Documentary on iconic ad wins Emmy

Quick: Think of former presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. What do you see?

The little guy riding around in a tank, wearing a helmet, of course.

And the reason you think that, even after 26 years, is Republican ad man Sig Rogich. He’s the person who crafted the delightfully simple spot, using footage from a Dukakis-staged photo op, which helped then-Vice President George H.W. Bush ascend to the presidency.

And now, a Politico documentary based on Rogich’s now-iconic ad has won a regional Emmy award, from the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. “Dukakis and the Tank: The Making of a Political Disaster,” executive produced by Matt Sobocinski and Denise Wills, details the fallout from the ad with interviews from inside the Dukakis campaign, as well as an interview with Rogich.

“It was a manifestly ridiculous thing to do. And we shouldn’t have done it,” said Matt Bennett, a political vet who was part of Dukakis’s advance team in 1988. “I didn’t think it was a good idea. I was very nervous about it.”

Why? “One cardinal rule of advance is you never, ever put your candidate in a hat, or any type of headgear.” But to ride in the tank safely and be able to communicate with the other personnel in it, Dukakis would have to wear a helmet, which also contained headphones.

Bennett and other staffers put the final blame for the incident on Jack Weeks, Dukakis’s trip director, who decreed that Dukakis would make two passes in the tank by the press riser, one sans helmet and one wearing it. The photo-op would ostensibly be the pass without the helmet.

But the reaction of the press corps was immediate, and brutal: They were laughing so hard, some had doubled over.

“I knew were were in trouble,” Bennett said in the documentary.

He had no idea how much trouble. Late that night, Rogich — the director of advertising for Bush-Quayle 1988 — spotted the footage on the news. He knew immediately it would make a great TV ad.

“I saw him in a helmet and I thought it was the worst depiction of a presidential candidate I could imagine,” Rogich told me in an interview. “He didn’t look the part.”

“I saw him and I thought, ‘What a great commercial,’” Rogich added.

He set to work immediately. The first problem: None of the broadcast networks would agree to share their footage with the Bush-Quayle campaign, knowing full well what Rogich intended to do with it. But he lucked out, and obtained a brief clip of the event from an independent producer who was present for the event.

The second problem was harder to overcome; Rogich wanted to get the rights to the song “Hang On, Sloopy,” by The McCoys to mock Dukakis’s stature, positioned inside the military vehicle. But there wasn’t enough time for that, so sounds of grinding tank gears would have to suffice.

Rogich eventually produced a devastating spot. As Dukakis rolled by, a narrator told the audience that “Dukakis has opposed virtually every weapons system we’ve developed.” It ended with a tight shot on the governor’s head and torso poking out of the tank. “And now he wants to be our commander-in-chief. America can’t afford that risk.” Worst of all? The ad aired Oct. 18, just weeks before election day, during the third game of the World Series.

For a candidate who had taken the ride in the first place to boost his defense credentials, it was a mortal blow.

But Rogich, the ad’s creator, also said he wavered on whether to use the ad at all. “I didn’t think we needed it,” he said. He shared his views with campaign chairman Jim Baker, who told him over the phone that a vote had been taken, “and you lost.” The ad became part of political history, and politicians to this day seek to avoid “Dukakis-in-the-tank” moments.

For his part, Bennett says he learned many lessons, among them, never put your candidate in a hat, and, perhaps more universally, “don’t try to force square pegs into round holes.”

Because you never know when the next Sig Rogich will be watching.