(FORTUNE Magazine) – If Wall Street dealmakers want to know what Mike Dukakis thinks about corporate takeovers, they ought to consider the influences right in his backyard. Massachusetts is home to four of 1988's most visible target companies -- Polaroid, now under siege by Roy Disney's Shamrock Holdings; Gillette, still smarting from its proxy battle with Coniston Partners; Filene's Basement, acquired by Campeau when it bought Federated Department Stores and now being spun off to management; and Stop & Shop, which chose a Kohlberg Kravis Roberts leveraged buyout to escape Herbert Haft's Dart Group. Takeover battles have not been popular in the Bay State -- or with Dukakis. Proximity and profile have something to do with it. Polaroid sits across the Charles River from the Statehouse. The Duke shops at Filene's Basement, a downtown Boston landmark. And the Goldberg family, managers of Stop & Shop, are well-known contributors to local causes. A Dukakis-appointed commission assessing the takeover activity is expected to make a preliminary report in August. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Dukakis adviser and Harvard business school professor who sits on the commission, says, ''He's concerned that there may be takeover activity that is just juggling of assets, costing jobs without productive benefit to the community.'' Fear of a Democratic crackdown on mergers may already be quickening the pre- election acquisition pace: 1986 holds the record for takeover activity -- $247 billion in deals completed, $99 billion announced in the first half. Through June of this year, $233 billion worth were announced.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: SOURCE: IDD INFORMATION SERVICES CAPTION: TAKEOVER DEALS ANNOUNCED DESCRIPTION: Total corporate takeover deals announced, 1987-second quarter, 1988; color illustration.