The American Vice Presidency

by Jules Witcover

  The Quayle camp was stunned, in part because Quayle had made that comparison on earlier occasions, and his advisers, including his wife, had counseled him to abandon it. Long after the debate, he insisted, “The comparison of myself and Kennedy on this point was relevant, because by 1960 he had served six years in the House and eight in the Senate, almost what I had, and he was running for the presidency itself.”19 Canzeri later blamed the misstep on Quayle’s short attention span, cruelly observing, “He was like a kid. Ask him to turn off a light, and by the time he gets to the switch, he’s forgotten what he went for.”20 Quayle blamed it all on his handlers, writing later, “My biggest mistake was allowing myself to be put in a position where I couldn’t take responsibility for anything—my schedule, my press availability, my own words and movements.”21

  As destructive as the exchange with Bentsen was to Quayle’s credibility, on Election Night the Bush-Quayle ticket won over the Democratic ticket of Michael Dukakis and Bentsen. Quayle now had a second chance to make a good impression on the American voters. On the eve of the inauguration of the new administration, he quoted Winston Churchill on what he had just been through: “There is nothing more exhilarating in life than to be shot at without result.”22

  In taking office, Quayle concentrated on two executive responsibilities given to him, chairing the National Space Council and the Council on Competitiveness, where he could carry the conservative flag against troublesome environmental regulations. He also undertook ceremonial duties abroad, with some political risk. Meeting in El Salvador with the retiring president, José Napoleón Duarte, he clumsily said the United States would “work toward the elimination of human rights.” On return, when the Republican National Committee censured the Louisiana legislator and former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke, Quayle commended the RNC for its “censorship” of him.23

  On an early Quayle trip to the Far East, a host of American reporters signed up for what came to be called the “gaffe watch.” They were rewarded on a refueling stop when he treated the locals to a geography lesson, Quayle style: “Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here.” At a stop in Pago Pago, American Samoa, where the famous resort is pronounced “Pango Pango,” he botched it as “Pogo Pogo,” as in the jumping stick or the old cartoon character. And he addressed a group of local schoolchildren as “happy campers,” leading the Samoan delegate to Congress to complain that he seemed to be “implying that the people of Samoa are simple, illiterate natives camped out in the jungle.”24

  Back home, in discussing the United Negro Fund, whose slogan at the time was “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” it came out of Quayle as “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind, or not to have a mind, is very wasteful. How true that is.”25 Quayle himself admitted that saying he had simply “mangled” the motto wasn’t enough. “I fractured, scrambled and pureed” it.26

  When an earthquake hit Northern California as millions of Americans watched a World Series game in San Francisco, Quayle inspected the damage and called it “a heart-rendering sight” at which “the loss of life will be irreplaceable.”27 Who could make up such malapropisms? But in an interview with the Dallas Morning News in November, Bush said Quayle would “absolutely” be his running mate again in 1992 if he wanted to be. When United Press International asked Quayle whether he might seek the presidency himself in 1996, he acknowledged, “Anytime you get into politics, being president crosses one’s mind.”28

  Soon after, Bush was en route to Malta for a summit meeting with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev when a coup attempt was made against President Corazón Aquino in the Philippines. On the advice of deputy national security adviser Robert Gates, Quayle called a meeting of the National Security Council and conveyed to Bush through White House communications its recommendation that American air cover be provided to keep rebel planes on the ground. Bush so ordered, this limited action worked, and the coup was foiled. Afterward, Quayle took credit as the man in charge with Bush airborne, noting, “I was the one asking the questions, seeking the options and pushing for a consensus.”29 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, also involved, later disputed his view. Powell wrote that it was his own intervention with Bush’s secretary of defense, Dick Cheney, that avoided a tougher response, but he allowed that the vice president “did perform well in the Philippine situation,” though his aides “put a spin on the story that exaggerated Quayle’s role.”30

  In early 1990 Bush sent the vice president to Latin America on an important damage-control mission after the administration’s invasion of Panama to overthrow dictator Manuel Noriega in violation of the charter of the Organization of American States. Two countries on Quayle’s itinerary, Mexico and Venezuela, balked at receiving him. But Quayle completed the other stops satisfactorily and without incident, except for another episode that kept the gaffe watch at work.

  In Chile, Quayle took his wife to the port city of Valparaiso for lunch and some tourist shopping. There he bought a carved wooden figurine of a smiling native, whose top slid up to reveal its lower frontal anatomy popping up. Marilyn Quayle saw her husband about to buy it, so he desisted, but later he sent a Secret Service agent back to get it for him. In the news media, the stories about the “anatomically correct doll” overshadowed all the constructive work Quayle had done on the trip. In a speech to the National Press Club on return, an irate Marilyn called the doll episode “an ugly chapter in journalism and an ugly chapter in my own personal life.”31

  One area in which Quayle was an unqualified success was in fund-raising for the party going into the 1990 midterm elections. By some estimates he raised more than fifteen million dollars for Republican candidates by segueing from the nice kid from Indiana into a slashing partisan. Noting he had beaten incumbents in his House and Senate races in Hoosierland, he bragged, “Believe me, you don’t beat incumbents by saying we’re all going to do a good job and I’m a nice guy. You beat incumbents by going for the jugular and by hammering the issues over and over again.”32

  An important disagreement between Bush and Quayle came in the wake of a mushrooming deficit and the president’s resulting June 1990 decision to break his 1988 convention pledge of “no new taxes.” His agreement to a compromise with the Democratic congressional leaders shocked and angered fellow Republicans, especially conservatives, including Quayle. He wrote later that he had told Bush, “You shouldn’t do it. You got a bad deal and you should walk away.” But in the end he played the good soldier, “lobbying for a plan my heart wasn’t in,” rationalizing that doing so “actually gained me a more sympathetic ear than I might have gotten otherwise.”33 In any event, in the midterm congressional elections the Republicans lost one Senate and eight House seats.

  In May 1991, when Bush was hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat after jogging and a surgical procedure was considered to deal with it, more questioning ensued of Quayle’s remaining in the direct line of presidential succession. The concern proved unnecessary when Bush quickly returned to his Oval Office desk. Still, Time ran photos on its cover of five Republicans “who could be president,” omitting Quayle, and Newsweek showed him swinging a golf club and asked, “The Quayle handicap.… Is he a lightweight—or smarter than you think?” Nevertheless, Bush reiterated his intention of keeping him on the ticket. His running mate, he said, was getting “a bum rap in the press, pounding on him when he’s doing a first-rate job.”34 On subsequent trips to Japan and to central and eastern Europe, Quayle was free of gaffes, but he got little press credit for it, not qualifying as news.

  The vice president did gain high marks and favorable publicity, along with sharp criticism from critics within labor and environmental circles, for his chairmanship of Bush’s Council on Competitiveness. Under Quayle, the council sought to alter federal rules regarding everything from airplane noise to opening wetlands for commercial development. He said his mission from Bush was “to
make sure that ‘regulatory creep’ … does not get back into his administration” and that he was “the last stop before the president” to curb excessively restrictive inhibitions to business.35 House Democrats later blocked the council’s appropriations, with the Virginia congressman James P. Moran calling it “a back door to the White House” for campaign contributors seeking a private hearing on regulatory issues.36

  In 1992, as Bush began his quest for reelection with Quayle at his side, he had to deal with two new threats: a primary challenge from the former Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan and the third-party candidate, the Texas business tycoon Ross Perot. In New Hampshire, which in 1988 had put Bush back on track after a humiliating third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, he had not yet returned to express his appreciation, and Buchanan was poised to make the most of it.

  As Bush was off to Tokyo, saying his objective was to create more markets for American products and hence more jobs, Buchanan had a large map of New Hampshire plastered on a factory wall in Manchester and sent a giant searchlight into the heavens for Bush’s plane. He told crowds that Bush should “put a Denver boot on Air Force One”—anchoring it in place—and maybe then Bush would find time to return to New Hampshire. When the Bush campaign finally sent Quayle to the state with the message that he still cared, Buchanan chided the president for sending “little Danny, the pit puppy” to do political battle with him.37

  Quayle arrived in Nashua only hours after word had come from Tokyo that Bush had become ill and collapsed while attending a state dinner, rekindling the question of presidential succession. As soon as Air Force Two landed, the vice president was asked again about his qualifications to take over if necessary. “I’m ready,” he curtly answered and walked off.38

  After returning from his foreign trip, when Bush finally got to New Hampshire a month before the primary, he was armed with cue cards, one of which instructed him to let the locals know he cared. It read: “Message: I care.” So he read it to them!39 Bush did not have to take a back seat to the gaffe champ, his vice president.

  Quayle, the solid family man, peddled family values hard in the remaining state contests. In California, Quayle blamed riots in Los Angeles on a “breakdown of family structure, personal responsibility and social order,” including women irresponsibly bearing children out of wedlock. He pointed to one of the most popular television shows of the day, Murphy Brown, in which the main character becomes an unwed mother. “It doesn’t help matters,” he said, “when prime time TV has Murphy Brown—a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid, professional woman—mocking the importance of fathers, bearing a child alone, and calling it just another ‘lifestyle choice.’ ”40 He set off a firestorm, bringing the battle over abortion rights squarely into the campaign, pleasing conservatives but with uncertain effect on the election. Bush kept his head down, but Quayle, unrestrained by imposed “handlers” this time around, played the notoriety for all it was worth.

  Rumblings of dumping him from the ticket were heard once more, these from the Republican senator James Jeffords of Vermont and some others. But Quayle’s chief of staff at the time, William Kristol, said later, “The people involved never had the nerve to really move beyond talk to conspiring.”41 Also, talk of removing Quayle would only resurrect questions about Bush’s selection of him in the first place. So nothing happened.

  In the fall campaign, Quayle played the usual running mate’s role of covering second-tier markets. In his one debate with the Democratic nominee Al Gore, he focused more on the man at the top of the ticket, Bill Clinton, criticizing his personal history and contending that Clinton did “not have the strength of character to be president.”42 Quayle acquitted himself well enough and could not reasonably have been blamed for the ensuing Republican defeat, clearly the result of Bush’s own failure to inspire confidence in the economic recovery he tried to sell or in himself.

  In April 1999, as a private citizen, Quayle declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nominee for 2000, and in August, he entered the Iowa straw poll in advance of the state’s 2000 precinct caucuses. He finished a dismal eighth and dropped out of the race. He resumed residence in Arizona and became chairman of the Competitiveness Center of the Hudson Institute. What had begun as a surprisingly easy climb up the political ladder eventually faded in an epidemic of unfortunate mishaps, many self-inflicted. His four years in the vice presidency did nothing to enhance the esteem of the office or his own, despite diligent service and good intentions. In the end, his tenure cast as much judgment on the man who put him in the line of presidential succession as on the good-natured Dan Quayle himself.

  ALBERT A. GORE JR.

  OF TENNESSEE

  Conventional wisdom was thrown to the winds in 1992 when the Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton of Arkansas chose another son of the South, Al Gore of Tennessee, as his running mate. Ignoring a tradition that a national ticket strategically should have geographical balance, Clinton selected a contemporary of his own region, putting a young face on the Democratic ticket.

  Although Gore’s family roots were unquestionably deep in southern soil, he actually was born in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 1948, and for much of his youth he resided there as the offspring of a brilliant United States senator whose name he bore. During sessions of the Senate, Albert Arnold Gore Sr. and wife Pauline kept an apartment in the stylish Fairfax Hotel, near Embassy Row, and young Albert Junior lived there, attending the exclusive private St. Albans School, within walking or busing distance. It was in many ways a restricting life for the boy, who nevertheless maintained high grades and was seen by students as well-behaved and cautious, though highly competitive in sports. He was captain of a not-very-good football team and in the words of one female classmate “just dabbled in being one of us.”1 While there he met his future wife, Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson, called Tipper, who attended another private school.

  When the Senate was not in session, the Gores lived on the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee, where the boy enjoyed the country life and was subject to many of the chores of the rural South. He was the Gores’ long-awaited first son, born nearly ten years after their daughter, Nancy, and his arrival rekindled Albert Senior’s wish for a boy on which to lay his highest hopes. Young Al’s path to his father’s political prominence did not, however, follow a straight line. In fact it took several detours—through Harvard as an undergraduate, to the Vietnam War as an enlisted man, and to daily journalism and law school in Nashville—before he finally arrived in Congress at the age of twenty-eight and in the Senate six years later.

  His father was in many ways a typical southern farmer, who made a modest living raising Black Angus cattle and tobacco. But as a senator in 1956, he would not sign the Southern Manifesto, which rejected the federally enforced desegregation of the public schools. He denounced it as a “spurious, inane, insulting” document and “the most unvarnished piece of demagoguery” he had ever read. A year later he voted for the Civil Rights Act, barring discrimination in voting based on race or color, further antagonizing much of the white voting population in the region.2

  His son’s major detour to Vietnam was the product of a personal dilemma young Albert faced as he approached his Harvard graduation in the spring of 1969. Like many of his fellow seniors who strongly opposed American involvement in the war, he would soon be subject to the military draft and the decision whether to wait for it to swallow him up or choose the other options: to seek a graduate student or conscientious objector deferment, flee to Canada, or enlist on his own. As the son of a famous senator who was also a vocal critic of the war and faced a stiff challenge to his reelection the next year, Albert Junior was obliged to weigh his decision in terms of not only his own future but also that of his father. He chose the only course that would be seen as upholding his own honor and the likely political viability of his father, and upon graduation he enlisted in the army as a private for a two-year hitch.

  Richard Neustadt, t
he celebrated government professor, counseled Gore: “If you want to be part of the country twenty-five years from now, if you want any future in politics, you’ve got to serve.”3 But that was well before Gore had made any firm decision to follow his father’s footsteps; at the time he was not expressing any inclination to do so.

  In the army he was classified as a journalist—he had worked as a New York Times copy boy one summer—and was sent to Fort Rucker, Alabama, where he worked on the base newspaper. The next spring he and Tipper were married at the National Cathedral in Washington, and that summer and fall he appeared in uniform in some television commercials for his father’s reelection, but in vain. As a critic of the war in Vietnam, Albert Senior lost his Senate seat, and shortly afterward his son was shipped to Vietnam. There he saw no combat, spending the next five months as a military reporter writing stories about fellow soldiers for their local newspapers back home.

  On return home, Gore got a job as a reporter at the Nashville Tennessean and took night classes at Vanderbilt University in religion and law while contemplating a possible future in journalism. With encouragement from the editor John Seigenthaler, he took to investigative work, all the while resisting the urging of family members, especially his mother, to try his hand in his father’s domain.

  But in 1976 Albert Senior’s old House district became open, and at age twenty-eight, to his parents’ great satisfaction, Albert Junior ran and won it. In the House, he made himself an expert on the exotica of arms control, to the discomfort of Democratic liberals, who felt he was getting in over his head. When Tennessee’s senior Republican senator Howard Baker resigned in 1984, Gore ran and was elected to his father’s old stamping ground.

  Only two years after entering the Senate, again prodded by his father’s ambition for his son and by his own, Al Gore startled most of the rest of the political community by deciding to reach for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988. He hoped at first to ride his expertise in arms control and support of a strong military to establish himself as the southern candidate. He further burnished his rightward swing by emphasizing his support of Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada in 1981 and of aid to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Another rival, Congressman Richard Gephardt of Missouri, accused him of “pandering to the right wing of the party.”4 In keeping with his southern strategy, Gore also ducked New Hampshire, the first primary state. His sharpened edge by now had antagonized all the other candidates, who wondered why the thirty-nine-year-old Tennessean was even in the race.