Today’s Almanac-June 15, 2010--Part II
On June 15, 1992 Vice President Dan Quayle effectively ended his political career when he corrected a student’s correct spelling of potato to potatoe at an elementary school Spelling Bee in Trenton, New Jersey. Personally, as a person who has sometimes been spelling challenged himself, I can feel Quayle’s pain-spelling is not necessarily a sign of intelligence. Be that as it may, it was just one of a long line of gaffs and misspeaks that had characterized his tenure in office and which raised serious doubts about his intelligence and fitness to serve. Among his more memorable quotes was this play on the slogan of the United Negro College Fund, “…what a waste it is to lose one's mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful…” Later he stirred controversy for blaming the unwed pregnancy of Candice Bergan’s TV Murphy Brown character for the breakdown of public morality. Quayle was the blonde and handsome son of an Indiana newspaper tycoon. He married Marylin Tucker, an ambitious and intelligent attorney slightly older than him. She was said to be the driving force in his career. Quayle was elected to Congress in 1976 at the age of 29. In 1980 he surprised three time incumbent Democratic Senator Birch Bayh to become the youngest person ever elected to that body from Indiana. Six years later he was re-elected in a landslide. Although popular in his state Quayle was conspicuously undistinguished as a Senator and had attracted virtually no public notice when Vice President George H.W. Bush picked him to be his running mate in 1988. Although the senior Bush had notoriously chaffed at being in the shadow of Republican demigod Ronald Reagan, most observers felt he wasn’t secure enough to pick a running mate of national stature who might overshadow him. Besides, he told aids, Quayle’s good looks would help with the “women’s vote.” After the Bush/Quayle team was defeated for re-election by Bill Clinton and Al Gore, Quayle could never get a political toehold again. Come-back bids faltered, particularly a humiliating attempt to win the Republican Presidential nomination in 2000 when he had to withdraw after finishing 8th in the Iowa Caucuses. Quayle and his wife live comfortably in Paradise Valley, Arizona where he devotes himself mostly to golf, making appearances on the conservative rubber chicken circuit and writing a lightly regarded nationally syndicated political column. He “authored” two books. The first, a memoir, Standing Firm, became a best seller hyped by conservative groups, radio commentators, and TV talking heads. He has become quite wealthy serving on corporate boards that require little work. He is quietly grateful to George W. Bush for making him seem like a genius by comparison.