Kitty Dukakis, Activist Wife of 1988 Presidential Nominee, Dies at 88

Perhaps the most enduring public moment for Mrs. Dukakis during the campaign was a debate question posed about her. The debate moderator, Bernard Shaw of CNN, had asked Mr. Dukakis: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”

“No, I don’t, Bernard,” Mr. Dukakis replied without emotion before reaffirming his opposition to the death penalty and discussing his record on crime. Analysts called the response tone-deaf, one of the worst in presidential debate history, and said that it helped sink Mr. Dukakis’s chances against his opponent, Vice President George H.W. Bush, who went on to win 40 states and the presidency.

Kitty Dukakis was embarrassed, she later told reporters. She was also livid and called the question outrageous and inappropriate.

“Thank God I’m not the candidate,” she said hotly, “because I don’t know what I would have done.”

Katharine Virginia Dickson was born on Dec. 26, 1936, in Cambridge, Mass., and grew up in nearby Brookline. She adored her father, Harry Ellis Dickson, who was a first violinist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a conductor of the Boston Pops.

She had a more prickly relationship with her mother, Jane (Goldberg) Dickson, whom Mrs. Dukakis described as an exacting perfectionist whose standards were almost impossible to meet. In her first book, “Now You Know,” published in 1990, Mrs. Dukakis recalled that her mother had told her that she was pretty but that her younger sister, Jinny, had personality. That and many similar comments, Mrs. Dukakis said, fed the low self-esteem that plagued her all her life.