VERY LIKE A QUAYLE
Stephen Robinson finds that
adversity has enhanced the vice-president's popularity
Washington FOR most of last weekend and well into midweek, the American television net- works and almost every newspaper seized upon President Bush's heart ailment as an excuse to resurrect selected highlights of their collections of Dan Quayle gaffes. Under portentous headlines like 'The Big If' and 'A Heartbeat Away', columnists and reporters have pontificated ad nauseam on the implications of George Bush's fluttering heart.
On the television screen, the worst moments of Dan Quayle's early months of prominence were recalled, most famously the occasion when Lloyd Bentsen, the Democratic vice-presidential runner in 1988, produced the only memorable soundbite of the campaign, after Quayle had compared himself to another youthful and photogenic American politician: 'Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy,' was Bentsen's crisp retort.
So, after four days of systematic ridicule on national television and vilification in the press, what damage has been done? Less than none. J. Danforth Quayle's approval rating as a man 'qualified to be president' had soared, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday, from 19 per cent last month to 43 per cent this week. By Contrast, only a third saw General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the man who oversaw the popular part of the Gulf war, as fit for the highest office in the land.
Quayle's new-found popularity has no- thing to do with his calm handling of his boss's health problem, or his remarkable patience in suffering the insults with good humour. It is simply that he had been on television a lot. Recent history shows that the fortunes of the vice-president, a notor- iously difficult role, rise and fall according to the amount of television exposure, whether it be kind or hostile.
The whole notion of fitness to govern is a peculiar force in American politics. Abra- ham Lincoln had served a mere two years in the House of Representatives before running for the White House, and few people would dispute that he went on to be a pretty good two-term president. Spiro Agnew, a notorious crook, had a 40 per cent approval rating two years after he was forced to resign the vice-presidency in disgrace. George Bush himself was widely dismissed as a wimp and Reagan's lap-dog until he won the presidency, and had trailed Michael Dukakis for much of the campaign. Indeed, Bush's speedy turn- around coincided with his controversial selection of Dan Quayle as his running mate at the Republican party convention in August 1988. Once in office, Bush was seen as a competent but unimaginative administrator, until with the invasion of Kuwait he became the warrior president. In American politics, the office makes the man.
For all the ponderous editorialising in the American newspapers, it is ridiculous to suggest that a minor heart ailment will seriously affect Bush's chances in next year's election. Dwight Eisenhower was out of action for three months after a massive coronary in 1955, but was trium- phantly re-elected for a second term with an increased majority the following year. The likeliest, and most welcome result of the heart scare is that we will all be spared the unedifying spectacle of the 66-year-old chief executive (who suffers slightly from arthritis) conforming to the worse excesses of America's fashionable health obsession with endless staged jogging expeditions. During the military build up in the Gulf, it was George Bush who between rounds of `power golf memorably advised the Amer- ican people 'to prudently recreate'.
But as for the 'What if?. . .' question, there is no good reason to be terrified of Dan Quayle. Most of the replayed gaffes date back to the 1988 campaign and his earliest days in office. With remarkable good humour, he has fulfilled the two roles for which the job exists. He has been ferociously loyal to the President, and has raised more money for the Republican party than any of his predecessors. No president could have asked more of a deputy. At the same time, with countless fundraising dinners and lunches, Quayle has built a formidable power base around the country, and accumulated a lot of political capital which the party will feel bound to repay. He is good on the stump, though his television interviews are still weak. True, he often struggles to string a sentence together, but then again syntax has never been George Bush's strong suit, either.
We have entered a boringly stable phase in American party politics, and with no heavyweight Democrat yet to have de- clared, the 1992 election threatens to be very dull indeed. So the pressure is on the political pundits in Washington to find something — anything — which might threaten the President's own enormous popularity. Last month it was the Kurds and Bush's alleged callous indifference to their plight; this week it was a weakened heart and the 'Quayle Factor'; next month it will be drugs or the crisis in the American health system, or the state of the economy.
But either way, Dan Quayle will still be on the Republican ticket next year, and well positioned for a run in 1996 for the Oval Office. Bush is loyal to him, and besides, it would be suicidal to drop him in response to taunts from second-rate Democratic presidential candidates and the liberal press.
One can almost see how he will be packaged five years hence — as the man who overcame initial adversity to serve loyally for two terms. One can hear the self-deprecating jokes about his past gaf- fes, rather as Ronald Reagan skilfully turned his age into a running theme of his second term campaign. And one can almost hear the likeliest Democratic con- tenders muttering, as they are doing now about next year's election, that it would be suicidal to run against Quayle in 1996, and that perhaps it would be prudent to wait another four years.
Stephen Robinson is the Daily Telegraph Washington correspondent.
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