Dan Quayle
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James Danforth Quayle III (born February 4, 1947) was the 44th Vice President of the United States under George H. W. Bush (1989-1993). In 2000, he was an unsuccessful candidate to win the Republican nomination for President of the United States.
Early life
Mr. Quayle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. After spending much of his youth in Arizona, he graduated from Huntington High School in Huntington, Indiana, in 1965. He then matriculated at DePauw University, where he received his B.A. degree in political science in 1969. After receiving his degree, Mr. Quayle joined the Indiana National Guard and served from 1969-1975. While serving in the Guard, he earned a law degree in 1974 through an experimental Indiana University program intended to offer "equal opportunity" to minorities, the economically disadvantaged and other students of different viewpoints and backgrounds.
Mr. Quayle's public service began in July 1971 when he became an investigator for the Consumer Protection Division of the Indiana Attorney General's Office. Later that year, he became an administrative assistant to Governor Edgar Whitcomb. From 1973-1974, he was the Director of the Inheritance Tax Division of the Indiana Department of Revenue. Upon receiving his law degree, Mr. Quayle worked as associate publisher of his family's newspaper, the Huntington Herald-Press, and practiced law with his wife in Huntington.
Early political career
In 1976, Mr. Quayle was elected to the U.S. Congress from Indiana's Fourth Congressional District, defeating an eight-term incumbent Democrat. He won reelection in 1978 by the greatest percentage margin ever achieved to that date in the northeast Indiana district. In 1980, at age 33, Mr. Quayle became the youngest person ever elected to the U.S. Senate from the State of Indiana, defeating three-term incumbent Democrat Birch Bayh. Making Indiana political history again, Mr. Quayle was reelected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 with the largest margin ever achieved to that date by a candidate in a statewide Indiana race.
During his tenure in the U.S. Senate, Mr. Quayle became widely known for his legislative work in the areas of defense, arms control, labor, and human resources. With his service on the Armed Services Committee, the Budget Committee, and the Labor and Human Resources Committee, he became an effective Senator, respected by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. In 1982, working with Senator Edward Kennedy, Mr. Quayle authored the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). This was the only major legislation that ever bore Mister Quayle's name the entire time he served in both the House and the Senate. In 1986, Mister Quayle recieved much criticism from his fellow Senators for championing the cause of Daniel Manion, who was a candidate to be a federal judge. It was later revealed that he was a member of the John Birch Society and that the American Bar Association had ruled him as unqualified. The nomination was later withdrawn.
Vice Presidency
In August 1988, at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, George H. W. Bush called on Mr. Quayle to be his running mate in the general election. Although Republicans were trailing by up to 15 points in public opinion polls taken prior to the convention, the Bush/Quayle ticket went on to win the November election by a convincing 54-46 margin, sweeping 40 states and capturing 426 electoral votes. Mr. Quayle was the 44th Vice President of the United States from January 20, 1989, to January 20, 1993.
As Vice President, Mr. Quayle was the first chairman of the National Space Council, a space policy body reestablished by statute in 1988. On February 9, 1989, President Bush named Mr. Quayle head of the Council on Competitiveness.
Throughout his time as Vice President, Quayle was widely ridiculed in the media and by some of the general public as a mental lightweight and was prone to verbal gaffes; as a result of this reputation, a great many apocryphal quotations are attributed to him [1]. He received the satirical Ig Nobel Prize for "demonstrating, better than anyone else, the need for science education" in 1991. Most famous was his correcting a student's spelling of potato as *potatoe at an elementary school spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey on June 15, 1992. When this story is related, it is usually not mentioned that Quayle was relying on a spelling-bee card on which the word had been misspelled by the teacher. In addition, one quote that has been attributed to him is (when he heard that he was to go to Latin America) "I knew I should have boned up on my Latin."
Quayle also made news for criticizing single-parenting by singling out the Murphy Brown situation comedy, starring Candice Bergen.
Republicans George Bush and Dan Quayle lost their bid for reelection to Democrats Gov. Bill Clinton and Sen. Al Gore in the 1992 election.
Post-vice presidency
In April 1999 he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the 2000 Presidential Election. In the first contest among the Republican candidates, the Iowa straw poll of August 1999, he finished 8th. He withdrew from the race the following month.
Former Vice President Dan Quayle is an advisor to the firm Cerberus Capital Management and president of Quayle and Associates. He is an Honorary Trustee Emeriti of the Hudson Institute.
Dan Quayle is the author of Standing Firm, a vice-presidential memoir that became a nationwide bestseller. His second book, The American Family: Discovering the Values that Make Us Strong, came out in the spring of 1996 and Worth Fighting For came out in 1999. The former vice president also 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.
Personal
In November 1972 Mr. Quayle married the former Marilyn Tucker of Indianapolis. They are the parents of three children: Tucker, Benjamin, and Corinne. Mr. Quayle, the oldest of four children, has two brothers and a sister: Chris, Mike, and Martha. He is the son of Jim and Corinne Quayle of Huntington, Indiana. He enjoys golf, tennis, basketball, skiing, horseback riding, fly fishing, and reading. Mr. Quayle particularly enjoys watching his children as they participate in team sports.
Further reading
- Dan Quayle, Standing firm :a vice-presidential memoir, Harpercollins, May, 1994, hardcover, ISBN 0060177586; mass market paperback, May, 1995; ISBN 0061093904; Limited edition, 1994, ISBN 0060176016
External links
| Preceded by: George H. W. Bush |
Vice President of the United States 1989-1993 |
Succeeded by: Al Gore |