Dan Quayle

Dan Quayle Biography

James Danforth "Dan" Quayle (born February 4, 1947) is an American politician. He was the 44th Vice President of the United States from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush. He was also a U.S. Representative (1977-81) and U.S. Senator (1981-89) from the state of Indiana.

A native of Indianapolis, Indiana, Quayle spent most of his childhood living in Paradise Valley, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. He married Marilyn Tucker in 1972 and obtained his J.D. from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in 1974. He practiced law in Huntington, Indiana, with his wife before his election to the United States House of Representatives in 1976, aged 29. In 1980 Quayle won election to the Senate.

In 1988, Vice President George H. W. Bush, the Republican Party nominee for the presidency, chose Quayle as his vice presidential running mate. The Bush/Quayle ticket won the 1988 election over Democrats Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen.

As vice president, Quayle made official visits to 47 countries and was appointed chairman of the National Space Council. He secured re-nomination for vice-president in 1992, but Democrat Bill Clinton and his vice presidential running mate, Al Gore, defeated the Bush/Quayle ticket.

In 1994, Quayle published his memoir entitled Standing Firm but declined to run for public office in this time period because he was suffering from phlebitis. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, but withdrew and supported George W. Bush. In 2016, he endorsed Donald Trump for president. Quayle and his wife reside in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

Quayle is the chairman of global investments at Cerberus Capital Management.

Early life

Quayle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Martha Corinne (ne Pulliam) and James Cline Quayle. He has sometimes been incorrectly referred to as James Danforth Quayle III. In his memoirs, he points out that his birth name was simply James Danforth Quayle. The name Quayle originates from the Isle of Man, where his great-grandfather was born.

His maternal grandfather, Eugene C. Pulliam, was a wealthy and influential publishing magnate who founded Central Newspapers, Inc., owner of over a dozen major newspapers such as The Arizona Republic and The Indianapolis Star. James C. Quayle moved his family to Arizona in 1955 to run a branch of the family's publishing empire. Quayle reported his net worth in 1988 as $1.2 million.

After spending much of his youth in Arizona, Quayle returned to his native Indiana and graduated from Huntington High School in Huntington, in 1965. He then matriculated at DePauw University, where he received his B.A. degree in political science in 1969, was a 3-year letterman for the University Golf Team (1967-69) and a member of the fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon (Psi Phi chapter). After receiving his degree, Quayle joined the Indiana Army National Guard and served from 1969-1975, reaching the rank of sergeant. While serving in the Guard, he earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1974 at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. He met his future wife, Marilyn, who was taking night classes at the same law school at the time.

Early political career

Quayle became an investigator for the Consumer Protection Division of the Office of the Indiana Attorney General in July 1971. Later that year, he became an administrative assistant to Governor Edgar Whitcomb. From 1973 to 1974, he was the Director of the Inheritance Tax Division of the Indiana Department of Revenue. Upon receiving his law degree, Quayle worked as associate publisher of his family's newspaper, the Huntington Herald-Press.

In 1976, Quayle was elected to the House of Representatives from Indiana's 4th congressional district, defeating eight-term incumbent Democrat J. Edward Roush by a 55%-to-45% margin. He won reelection in 1978 by the greatest percentage margin achieved to date in that northeast Indiana district. In 1980, at age 33, Quayle became the youngest person ever elected to the Senate from the state of Indiana, defeating three-term incumbent Democrat Birch Bayh by taking 54% of the votes to Bayh's 46%. Making Indiana political history again, Quayle was re-elected to the Senate in 1986 with the largest margin ever achieved to that date by a candidate in a statewide Indiana race, taking 61% of the vote and defeating his Democratic opponent, Jill Long.

In November 1978, Quayle was invited by Congressman Leo Ryan of California to accompany him on a delegation to investigate conditions at the Jonestown settlement in Guyana, but Quayle was unable to participate. Ryan was subsequently murdered in events leading up to the Jonestown massacre.

In 1986, Quayle was criticized for championing the cause of Daniel Anthony Manion, a candidate for a federal appellate judgeship, who was in law school one year above Quayle. The American Bar Association had evaluated Manion as "qualified/unqualified", its lower passing grade. Manion was nominated for the Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals by President Ronald Reagan on February 21, 1986, and confirmed by the Senate on June 26, 1986.

Vice presidential candidate

On August 16, 1988, at the Republican convention in New Orleans, Louisiana, George H. W. Bush chose Quayle to be his running mate in the 1988 United States presidential election. The choice immediately became controversial. Outgoing President Ronald Reagan praised Quayle for his "energy and enthusiasm". Press coverage of the convention was dominated with questions about "the three Quayle problems", in the phrase of Brent Baker, executive director of the Media Research Center, a conservative group that monitors television coverage. The questions involved his military service, a golf trip to Florida with Paula Parkinson, and whether he had enough experience to be president. Quayle seemed at times rattled and at other times uncertain or evasive as he tried to handle the questions. Delegates to the convention generally blamed television and newspapers for the focus on Quayle's problems, but Bush's staff said they thought Quayle had mishandled the questions about his military record, leaving questions dangling. Although Bush was trailing by up to 15 points in public opinion polls taken before the convention, in August, the Bush/Quayle ticket took the lead, which they did not relinquish for the rest of the campaign.

Quayle participated in the vice presidential debate of October 1988, alongside Democratic candidate Lloyd Bentsen. When the subject of the debate turned to Quayle's relatively limited experience in public life, he compared the length of his congressional service (12 years) with that of late President John F. Kennedy (14 years), as Kennedy had less experience than his rivals during the 1960 presidential nomination. It was a factual comparison, although Quayle's advisers cautioned beforehand that it could be used against him. Bentsen's response - "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" - subsequently became a part of the political lexicon. During the debate, Quayle's strategy was to criticize Dukakis as too liberal.

Vice presidency (1989-93)

The Bush/Quayle ticket won the November election with a 53-46 percent margin by sweeping 40 states and capturing 426 electoral votes.

Bush named Quayle head of the Council on Competitiveness and the first chairman of the National Space Council. As head of the NSC he called for greater efforts to protect Earth against the danger of potential asteroid impacts.

After a briefing by Lt. General Daniel O. Graham, (USA Ret.), Max Hunter, and Jerry Pournelle, Quayle sponsored the development of an experimental Single Stage to Orbit X-Program, which resulted in the building of the DC/X which was flown and tested at White Sands.

During his vice-presidency, Dan Quayle made official trips to 47 countries.

Throughout his time as vice president, Quayle was widely ridiculed in the media and by many in the general public, both in the U.S. and overseas, as an intellectual lightweight and generally incompetent. Contributing greatly to the perception of Quayle's incompetence was his tendency to make public statements that were either self-contradictory ("The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. ... No, not our nation's, but in World War II. I mean, we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century, but in this century's history"), self-contradictory and confused ("I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future") or just confused (such as his address to the United Negro College Fund, whose slogan is "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," where he said "You take the UNCF model that what a waste it is to lose one's mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.")

Shortly after Bush announced the Space Exploration Initiative, which included a manned landing on Mars, Quayle was asked his thoughts on sending humans to Mars. In his response he made a series of scientifically erroneous statements: "Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as Earth]....Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."

During the 1992 presidential campaign, Quayle told the news media that he believed homosexuality was a choice, and "the wrong choice."

Quayle has described the vice presidency as "an awkward office. You"?re president of the Senate. You"?re not even officially part of the executive branch -- you"?re part of the legislative branch. You"?re paid by the Senate, not by the executive branch. And it"?s the president"?s agenda. It"?s not your agenda. You"?re going to disagree from time to time, but you salute and carry out the orders the best you can".

"Potatoe"

On June 15, 1992, Quayle altered 12-year-old student William Figueroa's correct spelling of "potato" to "potatoe" at the Muoz Rivera Elementary School spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey. Quayle was widely lambasted for his error. According to The New York Times and Quayle's memoirs, he was relying on cards provided by the school, which Quayle says included the misspelling. Quayle said he was uncomfortable with the version he gave, but did so because he decided to trust the school's incorrect written materials instead of his own judgment.

Murphy Brown

On May 19, 1992, Quayle gave a speech entitled Reflections on Urban America to the Commonwealth Club of California on the subject of the Los Angeles riots. In this speech, Quayle blamed the violence on a decay of moral values and family structure in American society. In an aside, he cited the single mother title character in the television program Murphy Brown as an example of how popular culture contributes to this "poverty of values", saying, "It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown - a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman - mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another 'lifestyle choice'."

The "Murphy Brown speech" became one of the most memorable incidents of the 1992 campaign. Long after the outcry had ended, the comment continued to have an effect on U.S. politics. Stephanie Coontz, a professor of family history and the author of several books and essays about the history of marriage, says that this brief remark by Quayle about Murphy Brown "kicked off more than a decade of outcries against the 'collapse of the family. In 2002, Candice Bergen, the actress who played Brown, said "I never have really said much about the whole episode, which was endless, but his speech was a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did." Others interpreted it differently; singer Tanya Tucker was widely quoted as saying "Who the hell is Dan Quayle to come after single mothers?"

1992 election

During the 1992 election, Bush and Quayle were challenged in their bid for reelection by the Democratic ticket of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and Tennessee Senator Al Gore, as well as the independent ticket of Texas businessman Ross Perot and retired Admiral James Stockdale.

As Bush lagged in the polls in the weeks preceding the August 1992 Republican National Convention, some Republican strategists (led by Secretary of State James Baker) viewed Quayle as a liability to the ticket and pushed for his replacement. Quayle survived the challenge and secured renomination.

Quayle faced off against Gore and Stockdale in the vice presidential debate on October 13, 1992. Quayle attempted to avoid the one-sided outcome of his debate with Lloyd Bentsen four years earlier by staying on the offensive. Quayle criticized Gore's book Earth in the Balance with specific page references, though his claims were subsequently criticized by the liberal group FAIR for inaccuracy. Quayle's closing argument sharply asked voters, "Do you really believe Bill Clinton will tell the truth?" and "Do you trust Bill Clinton to be your president?", whereas Gore and Stockdale talked more about the policies and philosophies they espoused. Republican loyalists were largely relieved and pleased with Quayle's performance, and the Vice President's camp attempted to portray it as an upset triumph against a veteran debater. However, post-debate polls were mixed on whether Gore, Stockdale or Quayle had won. It ultimately proved to be a minor factor in the election, which Bush and Quayle subsequently lost.

Post-Vice Presidency politics

Quayle considered but decided against running for Governor of Indiana in 1996. He decided against running for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination, citing health problems related to phlebitis. Quayle moved to Arizona in 1996.

In April 1999, Quayle announced his candidacy for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, attacking front-runner George W. Bush by saying "we do not want another candidate who needs on-the-job training". In the first contest among the Republican candidates, the Ames Straw Poll of August 1999, he finished 8th. He withdrew from the race the following month and supported Bush.

Quayle, then working as an investment banker in Phoenix, was mentioned as a candidate for Governor of Arizona prior to the 2002 election, but eventually declined to run.

In a February 2010 interview with Megyn Kelly of Fox News, Quayle announced that his son, Ben Quayle, would be a candidate for the U.S. Congress, running for a seat representing Arizona's 3rd congressional district. Ben Quayle won the election. In his first bid for re-election, due to redistricting, he faced off against fellow Republican Congressman David Schweikert in a primary and narrowly lost.

In December 2011, Quayle endorsed Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination.

On January 31, 2011, Dan Quayle wrote a letter to President Obama urging Obama to commute Jonathan Pollard's sentence.

He has signed on the statement of principles of the Project for the New American Century.

For the United States presidential election in 2016 Quayle endorsed fellow Republican Jeb Bush. After Jeb failed to win the nomination he ultimately endorsed Donald Trump; he was later seen visiting with Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan, NY prior to the inauguration.

The Dan Quayle Center and Museum, located in Huntington, Indiana, features information on Quayle and on all U.S. vice presidents.

Personal life

Quayle lives with his wife, Marilyn Quayle in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

Quayle authored a 1994 memoir, Standing Firm, which became a bestseller. His second book, The American Family: Discovering the Values that Make Us Strong, was published in 1996 and a third book, Worth Fighting For, in 1999. Quayle writes a nationally syndicated newspaper column, serves on a number of corporate boards, chairs several business ventures, and was chairman of Campaign America, a national political action committee.

In 1999, Dan Quayle joined Cerberus Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar private-equity firm, where he serves as chairman of the company's Global Investments division. As chairman of the international advisory board of Cerberus Capital Management, he recruited former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, who would have been installed as chairman if Cerberus had successfully acquired Air Canada. In early 2014 he traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland, in an attempt to speed approval for a deal where Cerberus acquired nearly 1.3 billion in Northern Ireland loans from the Republic of Ireland's National Asset Management Agency. That deal is being investigated by the Irish government, and Quayle's involvement is being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York as potentially a "very serious" misuse of the vice president's office.

Quayle is an Honorary Trustee Emeritus of the Hudson Institute and is president of Quayle and Associates. He has also been a member of the Board of Directors of Heckmann Corporation, a water-sector company, since the company's inception and serves as Chairman of the company's Compensation and Nominating & Governance Committees. Quayle is a director of Aozora Bank, Tokyo, Japan. He has also been on the board of directors of other companies, including K2 Sports, Amtran Inc., Central Newspapers Inc., and BTC Inc.

His son Ben Quayle was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2010, but failed to win re-election in 2012.

Electoral history

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Miscellaneous

Quayle was awarded the 1991 Ig Nobel Prize (a parody of the Nobel Prize) in Education. The Improbable Research web page describes Dan Quayle as a "consumer of time and occupier of space, for demonstrating, better than anyone else, the need for science education."

In pop culture, "Danny Quayle" is mentioned in the Oingo Boingo song "Insanity", from the 1994 album Boingo. The lyrics in question read, "The white folks think they're at the top; ask any proud white male / A million years of evolution, and we get Danny Quayle."

In another pop culture reference, the video game series Civilization ranks a player in terms of historical figures. The highest rank possible is 'Augustus Ceasar' and the lowest rank possible is 'Dan Quayle'

Published material

Standing Firm: A Vice-Presidential Memoir, Harper Collins, May 1994. hardcover, ISBN 0-06-017758-6; mass market paperback, May 1995; ISBN 0-06-109390-4; Limited edition, 1994, ISBN 0-06-017601-6
The American Family: Discovering the Values That Make Us Strong (with Diane Medved), Harpercollins, April 1996, ISBN 0-06-017378-5 (hardcover), ISBN 0-06-092810-7 (paperback)
Worth Fighting For, W Publishing Group, July 1999, ISBN 0-8499-1606-2