good-looking Quayle might strengthen the ticket’s
appeal to women and provide a geographic Midwest
balance. Furthermore, he wanted a young running
mate in order to attract the votes of baby boomers.
The media began an assault on the young senator.
The assault became more pronounced as the cam-
paign progressed and his embarrassing comments
and flubs multiplied. However, journalists at first
simply examined his record and found it wanting.
They quoted the professors at DePauw who de-
scribed Quayle as a fraternity gadfly rather than a se-
rious student. They harped on his military reserve
status in contrast to his hawkish statements about the
Vietnam War and furthered the rumors that his fam-
ily’s influence got him into the reserve in front of
other applicants. Another rumor circulated about a
Washington junket Quayle had taken at the expense
of a lobbyist, including a golf outing and parties in
the company of women with questionable reputa-
tions.
Many conservatives also attacked Quayle for en-
listing in a “safe” reserve unit during the Vietnam
War instead of fighting at the front. Many Republi-
cans also believed the choice of Quayle was a mis-
take, as he continued to be nervous and flustered
in public. The party confined his appearances to
friendly conservative groups and kept him away
from large media outlets. Perhaps the most mem-
orable quotation of the campaign involving Sena-
tor Quayle was not by him but about him. During
the vice presidential debates, Quayle defended his
youth by stating he was as old as John F. Kennedy had
been when the latter became president. His oppo-
nent, Lloyd Bentsen, retorted, “Senator, I served
with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Ken-
nedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack
Kennedy.”
Despite his apparent liabilities as a running mate,
Quayle was elected alongside Bush in 1988. Presi-
dent Bush assigned Vice President Quayle to lead
the administration’s space efforts and placed him on
the Council of Competitiveness in the Twenty-first
Century. In this capacity he made many interna-
tional trips. However, Quayle’s greatest political lia-
bility was his poor speaking ability, and his speeches
produced a number of embarrassing gaffes, making
him the butt of many jokes and fodder for the na-
tion’s comedians. Quayle once tried to correct an el-
ementary school student’s correct spelling of potato
by spelling it “potatoe.” Some of his most legendary
misstatements include, “I stand by all the misstate-
ments that I’ve made” and “We have a firm commit-
ment to NATO; we are apartof NATO. We have a
firm commitment to Europe; we are apartof Eu-
rope.” Trying to utter the United Negro College
Fund’s motto “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” he
said, “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to
have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.”
Quayle also became the Republican Party’s
spokesman on issues of “family values,” as he at-
tempted to portray the party as the guardian of
American conservative social ideas and to portray
those ideas as traditional. He attacked the more “lib-
eral” views of leading Democrats, for example to-
ward abortion or gay rights. In this capacity, Quayle
spoke out against moral laxity in the entertainment
media and even attacked the television sitcomMurphy
Brown, because its title character had a child out of
wedlock with her ex-husband and planned to raise
it as a single mother. Quayle derided the show for
implying that single motherhood was a “lifestyle
choice,” whereas he believed it was a moral failure.
The writers of the show responded by incorporating
videotape of Quayle’s remarks into the show, and the
absurdity of a fictional character arguing with the
vice president enhanced his negative image.
Impact Quayle became a symbol of the new Repub-
lican conservative movement of the 1980’s. His sup-
porters rallied around his call for “family values,”
fewer domestic government programs, enhanced
American enterprise, and a furtherance of the Rea-
gan Revolution. His critics harped on his apparent
lack of intelligence and repeated his public speaking
mistakes. By the time he left office, Quayle was
enough of a figure of ridicule that his national politi-
cal career was effectively at an end.
Further Reading
Broder, David S., and Bob Woodward.The Man Who
Would Be President: Dan Quayle. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1992. Reprints articles fromThe Wash-
ington Postpresenting both the positive and nega-
tive sides of Quayle.
Fenno, Richard F.The Making of a Senator: Dan
Quayle.Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1989. Favor-
able account of how Quayle became a U.S. sena-
tor, written by a respected political scientist.
Quayle, Dan.Standing Firm: A Vice-Presidential Mem-
oir.New York: HarperCollins, 1994. Quayle’s auto-
biography.786 Quayle, Dan The Eighties in America