"I'LL stack our record of competence against any--any day of the week." said President Reagan last week after casting his absentee ballot for his successor.

Tomorrow is that day. Americans will have to stack the legacy of the Reagan administration against the prospects for the next four years. The Reagan administration's violation of our trust, from ethics violations to arms sales to Iran; its blindness to our deficit morass and its callousness to most Americans, from cutting education budgets to destroying poverty programs. Add to that eight years of judicial appointments that have sought to turn back the clock on civil rights. The record is frightening proof of what a successful Republican can achieve in office, and that is what is at stake in this election. That is also why Gov. Michael S. Dukakis should be the next President of the United States.

During the campaign, as Vice President George Bush condemned liberalism, Dukakis ran from his roots to take cover from the attack. Finally, in the last week of the campaign he acknowledged what he was and what he believed. And when Dukakis stood by liberalism, he was standing--not by what Bush called liberalism--but by what a majority of Americans believe in--civil rights, social rights, women's rights, economic rights.

An entire generation of Americans run the risk of knowing no other leaders than George Bush and Ronald Reagan. They are being taught that "liberal" is a dirty word, that government is bad and that style matters more than substance. Michael S. Dukakis teaches us the opposite. He is an intelligent man, with a compassionate heart, a strong leader who has led his state to economic recovery even as he ensured that it would care for its needy. He instituted an innovative policy for getting people off welfare, he led the passage of universal state health care, and he has proven that profitable business need not come at the expense of our environment.

The governor provides hope to those who have lost it. President Reagan has sought to be just one of the people, with his affable smile and his 10-gallon hat, but when the bills came to his desk, he cut the taxes of the wealthy and added to the burden on working people. Michael S. Dukakis and vice presidential nominee Lloyd M. Bentsen do not pretend that they are just plain folk. They are more interested in making programs than pretense. They will be on the side of average Americans when it comes time to protect their economic and civil rights.

The most important impact the next president may have will be on the judical system. The court is already set to reconsider cases that have pushed civil rights and women's rights forward; Reagan nominees have shown that they are intent upon cutting them back. With three liberal justices poised for retirement, the next president, in effect, will cast the deciding votes. Bush supported the nomination of Robert Bork and he cast the tie-breaking Senate vote confirming reactionary Daniel Manion as a federal judge. He certainly would appoint justices who would send civil rights and civil liberties spinning backwards.

BUSH has said all along that this campaign is about values, and he is right. But the values he has stood for represent the dark side of this country.

When it came time to pick a running mate, Bush chose a young, vacuous senator, whose only qualification seems to be his unerring toeing of the reactionary line. Born to enormous wealth and helped by nepotism every step of the way, Senator Dan Quayle personifies what has come to be known as the Me Generation.

Now, he touts the virtues of foreign intervention and the necessity of aiding the illegal war in Nicaragua. Twenty years ago, he was content to allow his family to keep him out of Vietnam. As a senator, he has voted against funding polio immunization programs. He has voted against school lunch programs. When asked how he could justify that vote to poor families, he responded: "They didn't ask me those questions." His civil rights rating is among the lowest in the Senate. In the area of foreign policy, he has said that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is merely a modern-day Stalin. He is unqualified for the vice presidency.

George Bush says that he chose Quayle because he was a younger image of himself. He is right. Bush may have more experience and more titles that his running mate, but his impact has been obscure when it has not been dangerous.

Loyal man that he is, Bush aided and abetted an administration that has done all it could for the wealthiest in our nation, while doing as little as possible for those less fortunate.

The administration has led an all out assault on affirmative action programs. It has reduced federal subsidies on low-income housing by 77 percent leading to burgeoning numbers of citizens living their lives on the streets. Both poverty programs and job training programs have been slashed, resulting in an increase in the number of children who are born into the cycle of dependency. For those trying to escape that cycle of pain, the Reagan-Bush administration offered only barriers. Financial aid for students has been chopped.

NOW standing at the head of his ticket, George Bush told the country that he wanted a "kinder, gentler nation." He then commenced a campaign of unparalleled viciousness, appealing to precisely those undertones of racism and xenophobia, mean spiritedness and selfishness that have become ever more visible in the last eight years.

He began by implying that his opponent, a son of Greek immigrants, was unpatriotic. Rousing much of the nation into a frenzy of flag waving the Republican Party nominee all but said that loyalty oaths should once again be required.

He then moved to exploit a human tragedy into a political advantage, all the while capitalizing on those vestiges of racism to which his administration has given comfort. The repeated emphasis on the Willie Horton rape case is not about bringing out the differences between candidates; it is about bringing out differences between Americans--rich and poor, Black and white.