Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis Cigarettes Were a Thing

Two things you don't hear much about these days: cigarettes and Michael Dukakis. What do these things have in common? You might be surprised to learn that Dukakis' image once appeared on cigarette packs, as did his rival for the U.S. presidency in 1988, George H. W. Bush.

A Democrat, Michael Dukakis served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and from 1983 to 1991. In 1988, Dukakis won the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, but lost the election to Republican Vice President Bush.

Neither Dukakis nor Bush was a known cigarette smoker. So how did their images wind up on cigarette packs?

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The Smithsonian says, "Beginning in the 1950s, retailers had suggested, somewhat humorously, that sales of campaign-themed cigarettes could be used as a form of polling to gauge election results, although totals were never tracked systematically."

Campaign cigarettes were no longer distributed nationally after 1988, according to Smithsonian.com.

According to The Cancer Letter, tobacco advertisements and promotional artifacts from presidential election campaigns are spotlighted in the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society online exhibit.

The involvement of tobacco companies in political advertising seems to date back to at least the 1860s.

I found a pack of Dukakis and Bush campaign cigarettes while spending a rainy day wandering New Bedford Antiques at the Cove in the Kilburn Mill in New Bedford's South End.

Though the cigarette pack's owner wasn't around, there was dealer information and a telephone number. These might make a nice addition to a political memorabilia collection.