In 1988 Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee, was asked whether he would support the death penalty for somebody who had raped and murdered his wife. No, he said calmly-he had always opposed capital punishment. His poll numbers plunged, and a few weeks later he carried just ten states. The Democrats took a lesson from this: don't talk about crime and the death penalty, or, if you do, talk tough.rnUntil recently it was easy to say little. Three years after Mr Dukakis's comments crime began to tumble. The number of robberies fell from 688,000 in 1991 to just 401,000 in 2004 even as the population increased (see chart). The only thing policemen, mayors and presidents were expected to say was how splendid this was. Apart from a few liberals, who fretted about the expanding prison population, most believed that the problem was solved.
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