In the Post series, Quayle passed through a metal detector of political credibility set up by two of the paper’s most formidable reporters, Bob Woodward and David Broder. In book-length detail, they cleared Quayle of a host of charges: that he had pulled strings to get into the National Guard, that he stood to inherit millions, that he was merely a handsome young man in the right place at the right time when Bush was casting about for a running mate in 1988. In the Woodward-Broder version, Quayle had plotted his rise with care (and with the cunning help of his wife, Marilyn), was steeped in an amiable but unshakable conservatism and had been the victim of bad advice and condescension from Bush’s buddy, James Baker.
Now, said Woodward and Broder, Quayle was setting himself up for a run in 1996 by presiding over Bush’s probusiness Competitiveness Council and serving as the right’s point man. Though the Post also found Quayle to be a man with a shallow intellect and a yen for six-hour golf excursions, the vice president might hope the generally respectful treatment would trigger a media chain reaction. “The press corps now will be less quick to jump on everything the man does and says as silly and ridiculous,” said Douglas Bailey, publisher of The Hotline.
Quayle’s standing got a boost from another unlikely source: Patrick Buchanan. The right-wing columnist’s quest for the Republican nomination suddenly makes Quayle a useful man on the campaign trail. Buchanan’s New Hampshire chairman derided the vice president as Bush’s “pit puppy.” But Quayle’s conservative credentials allow him to appeal to the state’s large contingent of right-wing Republicans. “Quayle will be an asset on the ticket because he is the one that can reassure the conservatives,” former president Richard Nixon told Larry King. “For those that think George Bush has become a flaming liberal, Dan Quayle will be out there preaching the old-time religion.”
Quayle has always been a winsome personal campaigner. He hopscotched New Hampshire last week employing his grinning nice-guyism and his years of Indiana experience at hand-to-hand vote getting. Quayle donned high-school letter jackets, sipped morning coffee in kitchens and played to large and friendly crowds eager for celebrity drop-bys in a year of otherwise faceless candidates. Bush operatives were relieved at the first rushes. “He’s a very, very key election asset for us,” said Bush campaign political director Mary Matalin.
Despite the boost from the Post and Nixon (who have rarely agreed on anything), Quayle has a formidable sales job to perform on the public. A Gallup poll last week showed that most Americans still view him unfavorably. “On TV, the public sees a man with that deer-in-the-headlights look,” said Bailey. “That remains the public perception of Dan Quayle.”
Still, Quayle can measure his progress in small details. He might take a dram of comfort from the new bumper strips shipped to the president’s Manchester, N.H., headquarters last week. Quayle’s name was half the size of the president’s. But at least it was there.
