What If: VP Dan Quayle won the 2000 Republican nomination and election?

Citing health reasons, former Vice-President Dan Quayle decided not to run for president in 1996 and then sought the 2000 Republican presidential nomination. He withdrew in 1999 before the caucus and primary season commenced and endorsed then-Texas Governor George W. Bush. Bush actually endured the same type of criticism that Quayle had in 1988 (i.e., allegedly using connections to get into the national guard and avoid being sent to Viet Nam, intellectual lightweight, lack of readiness for the presidency, etc). Recall that in 1992, Quayle was a better and more aggressive candidate than in 1988 when he seemed to be a "deer caught in the headlights."

What If Dan Quayle stayed in the race, won the 2000 Republican nomination, and then the fall election? Who would have been Quayle's running mate? Would he have won by a more decisive margin over Gore in the electoral college? How would he have handled 9/11 and its aftermath? Would he have led the U.S. into a second war with Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan (which any president would have at least bombed if not invaded after 9/11)? What would have been his domestic policy accomplishments?

Given how close the election was IOTL, Gore probably wins the election.

At the very least, I think Quayle needs to run for office, or do something equally as high-profile in the Clinton years-and come off well from it in order to stand a chance at the 2000 nod. That alone could be tricky if his Veepship goes the same as OTL-with the Gafs at the forefront of everyone's mind, the republican establishment might not want him doing anything high-profile enough to set him up for a 2000 run.

If pretty much everything goes as it did in OTL until 1999, I don't see any way he can win. First of all, he'd need to knock Bush out of the primaries, as they'd be trying to appeal to the same voters. Bush at least was a state Governor before his election and was fairly popular in his home state too. Quayle, fairly or not, was seen as a joke not only by most of the public, but the majority of the conservative base he'd have to try and woo away from Bush.

If Bush doesn't run (say Richards wins in 1994) and the GOP want an alternative to McCain, then another conservative candidate who either fizzled in the early stage of the primaries or endorsed Bush in OTL, will come forward-and Quayle would probably support them.

If Quayle, somehow, manages to beat Bush, McCain and any other conservative candidate in the primaries, I think Gore wins the election. To be fair to Quayle I think with the correct advice he might be able to shake off some of the "potatoe" baggage to make the election fairly competitive (the very fact he'd have won the primaries against all the odds will help him and could give him a "comeback kid" appeal). In the end I don't think enough people would have been convinced by Quayle though, so you'd probably end up with a relatively comfortable Gore win, unless the dems get really complacent, which I suppose is a possibility.

If Quayle is president from 2001 anyway, I can see foreign polecy going about the same as it did in OTL under Bush, at least initially. I think Quayle would have similar people advising him-though with his prior experience in the Bush admin, I wonder what Quayle would think about invading Iraq. I think his first term goes about the same as Bush's all in all though and if he's managed to get himself elected in 2000, he stands a fairly good chance at beating Kerry in 2004.

Yeah, Quayle isn't going to beat Bush. Forget that thing. Quayle got hammered even in the Iowa Straw Poll.

What you would need is Quayle to re-establish his reputation after the Vice Presidency by becoming a successful Governor of Indiana, somehow. Bush is beat in 1994 by Ann Richards, and the GOP establishment coalesce, or at least partly coalesce as the least worst option, around the non-congressional Quayle.

Even that, though, is a stretch.

Good luck getting past that public persona. Bush had an odd sort of good old boy charisma about him that did somewhat blunt the ignoramus charge. Quayle doesn't. He comes off exactly as he is. Completely incompetent.

As an old-school Theodore Roosevelt-style Republican, I have three words summarizing the effect of a presidential nomination for Dan Quayle in 2000: president Albert Gore.

Quayle would have been a latter-day Harding without the corrupt friends, in well over his head in the Oval Office. About the best that might be hoped for is a cabinet full of humorless, grimly honest types like Elliott Richardson (not him specifically; I use him as a prototype): Quayle is then a ribbon-cutting figurehead while the real decisions would be made at the cabinet level and by congressional party leadership.

I agree Quayle has to build up his reputation.It would be very hard to win the nomination let alone beat Gore with his OTL low level of popularity.if he got elected, I think he would govern like Bush. Very little would change.

Paul V McNutt said:

I agree Quayle has to build up his reputation.It would be very hard to win the nomination let alone beat Gore with his OTL low level of popularity.if he got elected, I think he would govern like Bush. Very little would change.

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One difference might be the absance of any type of "No Child Left Behind" polecy, though in the scheme of things that's not a major change.

Quayle first serves as IN Governor

Perhaps this scenario makes more sense if Quayle first runs for Governor of Indiana in 1996 (instead of taking a pass as in OTL), defeats Lt. Governor Frank O'Bannon to win the open seat, and does a good job as Governor during the economic boom years of the late 1990s.

Quayle, at age 53, then runs for president in 2000 as the conservative candidate with the most experience (4 years in the U.S. House, 8 years in the U.S. Senate, 4 years as Vice-President, and 3+ years as Governor of Indiana) against "lightweight" George W. Bush and a crowded Republican field. By 1999-2000, Quayle is a far more confident and polished candidate and wows Republicans who were previously skeptical about supporting the "punchline Vice-President." He is remarkably gaffe-free, compared to his time as Vice-President. The media compares the Quayle comeback favorably to that of Nixon in 1968--noting that the "New Quayle" is far more affable than Nixon ever was and is able to laugh at the "Old Quayle."

The media beats up on George W. Bush as being too much like the "Old Quayle" of 1988. Bush's mid-1970s DUI conviction comes out in late 1999, nearly a year earlier than in OTL. The old DUI conviction, plus unsubstantiated rumors of past cocaine use, prove more damaging to Bush than in OTL.

The "New Quayle" wins the Republican nomination. Faced with a tough fall campaign against Al Gore, Quayle opts for a "game changer" and selects Elizabeth Dole as his running mate. Snarky pundits argue that the selection of a female running mate by Quayle is part of a deliberate strategy to highlight the various Clinton-era scandals--especially the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Gore, seeing the need to distance himself from the Clinton scandals (but not the Clinton record), subsequently picks as his running mate CT Senator Joe Lieberman, who had publicly criticized Clinton's behavior with Lewinsky.

Quayle-Dole narrowly defeats Gore-Lieberman in both the popular and electoral vote count. Florida goes to Quayle, with Green party candidate Ralph Nader pulling 1.6% of the popular vote there that otherwise would probably have gone to Gore. Quayle's 1% margin of victory (some 59,000 votes out of nearly 6 million cast) is enough to avoid a drawn-out Florida challenge as occurred in OTL. The female "gender gap" in favor of the Democrats is virtuality non-existent nationally as women split 46-49% between Quayle and Gore, while men vote more heavily for the Republicans. Dole's presence on the ticket is credited with the closing of the female gender gap.

Interesting thesis. One thing, though: somehow, Quayle would then have to establish himself as his own man quickly; otherwise, the allegations of Bob Dole acting as the real but shadow president through his wife the VP would fly before long.

How would President Quayle handle 9/11?

Lump on his neck

Does he have Karl Rove in his ear during the debates with Gore?

Æsir said:

Given how close the election was IOTL, Gore probably wins the election.

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One of the big reasons it was that close was because the late break of the Bush drunk driving scandal, people seem to forget that scandal sucked votes away from Bush and made it as close as it was.

Late-breaking DUI story nearly cost Bush the election

Zacoftheaxes said:

One of the big reasons it was that close was because the late break of the Bush drunk driving scandal, people seem to forget that scandal sucked votes away from Bush and made it as close as it was.

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Very true! In OTL, several public opinion polls released in the week or two before the election, prior to the DUI story, had shown Bush leading Gore by a consistent 4% margin nationally. Bush seemed to cruising to a narrow popular and electoral vote win over Gore.

The story about Bush's mid-1970s DUI conviction broke on the Friday just the November 2000 election--this was before the expansion of early voting opportunities. It dominated the TV news in the last few days before the election. The late-breaking DUI story caused a late shift towards Gore by undecided or persuaded voters that was difficult to measure in the final weekend opinion polls. Usually, the last-minute undecideds go 2-1 for the challenger, not the incumbent party candidate.

The late-breaking DUI story probably cost Bush a popular vote win (Gore ended up winning the national popular vote by over 530,000 votes). It contributed to both the razor-thin Florida vote outcome and six-week recount battle in the courts. Bush also might have won both Iowa and New Mexico, which went to Gore by razor-thin margins, but for the DUI story.

In my Quayle wins TL, the Bush DUI story breaks almost a year earlier and hurts Bush in the early GOP caucuses and primaries to the benefit of the New Quayle.