WI: Dan Quayle Became POTUS?

Noticeable in all the eulogies over George H.
W. Bush was any mention of his Vice President, Dan Quayle.This is most likely because he was widely regarded- even by Republicans- as a joke if not a downright embarrassment. I don’t think it is an acc-
ident that since the conclusion of Bush’s presidency Quayle has receded into utter obscurity(@ the moment I believe he is working as a banker).OK, let’s suppose that during Bush’s Presidency something happens & he dies in office. Quayle thus becomes POTUS. What would a Quayle presidency look like? What would he do? What- if any- impact on history would it have?(For example, would Dan Quayle as POTUS mean Gulf War I would be butterflied away?)
 
Last edited:

DougM

Donor
I encountered Quale once when I was a college student and he was VP still. And in more relaxed setting he came off as much smarter then he is commonly portrayed.
I think that Quale had the same type of problem that Ford and to a lesser degree Carter had (which Carter would grow out of with time) and that is they made stupid mistakes in public this embarrassed them so they started being nervous in public and thus they made more mistakes. Add to the the news media playing this up and you get three guys who I think all were a lot more intelligent then the media would have you believe.

So to answer your question I think he would have done a lot better them most people would give him creadit for. His one issue maybe dealing with Congress as his reputation was extremely damaged due to the aforementioned issues.

By the way his infamous statement he was lambasted for about having more experience then Kennedy had before he was elected to the Presidancy is actually true. But the news media loved to play that one as his being an idiot. That is probably because Kennedy was the Media and Libral darling that died in office so can do no wrong and is now put up as some saint like President. While the media loves to play Quale as a bafoon.
 
First off it means that Irving Kristol's idiot son Bill (When has he ever been right?) now has the ear of the President of the United States and would be pushing the Neo-Con line.
Second President Quayle would have pushed for deep spending cuts in domestic spending and when the recession hits in 1991, he would have gone with an "Austerity Program" to fight the recession only to make it worse.
 

Driftless

Donor
Besides the overblown concern about his relative intelligence; his resume' to that point looked pretty wimpy compared to President G H W Bush and that worried many folks. The dropoff in diplomatic experience was huge at a time of some very significant world changes.
 

Zwinglian

Banned
By the way his infamous statement he was lambasted for about having more experience then Kennedy had before he was elected to the Presidancy is actually true. But the news media loved to play that one as his being an idiot. That is probably because Kennedy was the Media and Libral darling that died in office so can do no wrong and is now put up as some saint like President. While the media loves to play Quale as a bafoon.
I’d say the Dan Quayle not being smart thing came more from things like Potatoe and some of his “interesting” quotes than the Jack Kennedy thing. You are no Jack Kennedy more made him look like he had a big ego
 
Quayle was actually of some significance as VP--Bush was hesitant to seek Congressional approval for Desert Storm (he feared he might not be able to get it, and in any event he thought he could resort to force without it). Quayle thought that Bush could and should get congressional authorization (remember, unlike Bush he had experience in both houses of Congress):

"It was this sense of urgency that incited Quayle to encourage the president to seek Congress' support. He was the first administration member to urge Bush to acquiesce to Congress on a war vote. He predicted that the president would win and could thereby begin building a consensus for war with Iraq. 'I was one that was encouraging the President to go in December [1990] to ask for the support of Congress,' said Quayle. 'I felt the earlier the better.'

"Indeed, during internal administration debates, Quayle had pushed the president to seek the resolution before Christmas of 1990—but lost. Bush eventually made the request of Congress a few weeks later in early January. The resolution passed by a slim margin just days before the initiation of the war, with Quayle present to cast the deciding vote should Congress have been deadlocked. Kengor, Paul G. “The Role of the Vice President during the Crisis in the Persian Gulf.” Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 4, 1994, pp. 783–807. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27551325.

But if Quayle became president, he would probably be defeated in 1992 for the same reason Bush was in OTL--basically, the economy.
 
Not sure if Quayle would have been pro or anti-Nafta. If he took an anti-Nafta position Perot may not have run in 92. Against Quayle many of the Democratic major players like Cuomo may have run instead of sitting out so Clinton may have been out of luck.
 
First off it means that Irving Kristol's idiot son Bill (When has he ever been right?) now has the ear of the President of the United States and would be pushing the Neo-Con line.
Second President Quayle would have pushed for deep spending cuts in domestic spending and when the recession hits in 1991, he would have gone with an "Austerity Program" to fight the recession only to make it worse.

Uh- Bill Kristol has been right as often as
Rush has been? (I’m sure ejpsan we could
both work this out on one hand & have fin-
gers to spare!)
 
I’d say the Dan Quayle not being smart thing came more from things like Potatoe and some of his “interesting” quotes than the Jack Kennedy thing. You are no Jack Kennedy more made him look like he had a big ego

I’ve also heard he had the same problem W had - malapropisms and not much public speaking ability. You don’t have to be a genius to be President; you do, however, have to sound smart. Reagan could do it. HW stumbled every now and then. Quayle’s strength was not public speaking.
 
Quayle is a year younger than W., could do a switch in for his presidency and probably get the same results... except better on the economy. Quayle was pro-emissions trading in 1999.
 
Thanks to Quayle's lack of appeal to centrists, his opponent in 1992 might not feel any need for a "third way" platform and therefore might not be as tough-on-crime or as anti-welfare.
 
There is something my father once said of Dan Quayle: "He is someone who knew that he did not have to get A's to get ahead in life, and B's was all he needed and the doors still would have been opened for him".
I have no doubt that Quayle was intelligent, it just was that to me he did not show any intellectual curiosity and he restricted himself to only accepting ideas that fit his political philosophy and did not show any interest in other viewpoints.
 
Top