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James Danforth Quayle (born February 4, 1947) was the forty-fourth Vice President of the United States under George H. W. Bush (1989-1993). In 2000, he failed to win the Republican nomination for President.
Early life
Mr. Quayle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was named after James Danforth, a longtime Quayle family friend killed in World War II. 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 from Indiana University in 1974.
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).
Vice Presidency
In August 1988, at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, George 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 38 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.
- For more information, see 1988 election
In his Constitutional role as Vice President, Mr. Quayle served as president of the United States Senate. He is a statutory member of the National Security Council and is 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 that will work to ensure U.S. international competitiveness into the 21st century.
In the 1992 campaign Quayle proved to be a conservative fighter ready to spar against the Democrats. Republicans George Bush and Dan Quayle lost their bid for reelection to Democrats Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Sen. Albert Gore of Tennessee.
- For more information, see 1992 election
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 . Most famous was his correcting a student's spelling of potato as "potatoe". 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 although admittedly Quayle should have picked that up.
Quayle also made news for criticizing single-parenting by singling out the Murphy Brown situation comedy, starring Candice Bergen.
Presidential bid
In April 1999 he announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. 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.
- For more information, see 2000 Presidential Election
Personal information
Former Vice President Dan Quayle is Chairman of the Competitiveness Center of the Hudson Institute. The Center is a nonpartisan, educational institution founded in March 1993 to help America meet the challenges of global competition, now and into the next century. He is a member of the Hudson Institute's Board of Trustees and serves on the Board of Directors of American Standard Inc., Central Newspapers Inc., BTC Inc., and Amtran Inc.
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.
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. The former vice president also writes a nationally syndicated newspaper column, serves on a number of corporate boards, chairs several business ventures, and is chairman of Campaign America , a national political action committee.
External links
| Preceded by: George H.W. Bush |
Vice Presidents of the United States | Succeeded by: Al Gore |