On this date 34 years ago, George H.W. Bush tapped Dan Quayle as his running mate. The pick, announced at the 1988 Republican Convention in New Orleans, was a closely-held secret, and a genuine surprise. And one not universally well-received.
A boyishly handsome 41-year-old Indiana senator, Quayle was thrust into the national limelight in a way that was probably unfair to him. Until that moment, Quayle was an up-and-coming young conservative with quiet ambition who was gradually building a record that might allow him to seek national office -- someday.
Suddenly, however, an incumbent Republican Vice President Bush is whispering into President Reagan's ear that he's settled on Quayle as his veep choice, and a few hours later Bush is announcing it to the entire world as Quayle is bounding beside him on the dais at New Orleans' Riverwalk, looking surprised -- and not quite prepared.
Bush had been sold on the generational angle: a member of the World War II generation had chosen someone from the Vietnam generation. It wasn't that simple, though, as subsequent events would reveal.
George H.W. Bush took a gamble on Dan Quayle in the middle of a nominating convention designed to reintroduce Bush to a nation that had for eight years viewed him as a barely relevant appendage to the Reagan administration. It was the first decision most Americans had ever seen Bush make on his own.
So what did it tell voters? Well, for one thing, it showed that Bush was willing to roll the dice. This can be an appealing trait in a presidential candidate, especially one so obviously square and so rooted in the country club wing of the GOP establishment.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan had not been similarly daring. He'd simply chosen the guy who'd finished second to him in the nominating contest. But if the Gipper had any qualms about Quayle, he kept them to himself. Some Reagan aides were not so circumspect. Comparing the relatively callow Quayle to Indiana's senior senator Richard Lugar, one Reaganaut in New Orleans told me, "If we're going to pick a senator from a state we are already going to carry, why not pick the top senator from that state?"
Lugar, who died in 2019, is a revered figure in Indiana politics, and beyond. Today, there are Indiana parks and grad schools named after him, not to mention a U.S. Navy warship. But Lugar's exit from politics was ignominious: He lost his attempt to win a fifth term after being swamped in the 2012 primary by a right-wing candidate so thoroughly opposed to abortion that he proclaimed that a pregnancy brought about by forcible rape was "something that God intended to happen."
That candidate did not prevail in the general election, but it was a signal that the Republican Party was heading into uncharted waters. Four years later, the candidate whom many observers believed epitomized that perilous direction chose another Hoosier as his running mate.
Just as George H.W. Bush had intended by picking Quayle, Donald Trump's choice of Mike Pence was intended to placate conservatives. Trump's gambit, which was bolstered by his announcement that he'd choose Supreme Court justices from a list prepared by conservative judicial activists, worked -- it helped get him elected. The partnership frayed only after Trump seemed to offer encouragement to a mob that marched into the U.S. Capitol chanting, "Hang Mike Pence!" But that is a narrative you know already. As for how the 1988 choice of Dan Quayle as a running mate compares to Joe Biden's 2020 selection of Kamala Harris, well, that's a story for another day.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.