George H.W. Bush surprised the political establishment in 1988 when he tapped Indiana's junior senator, J. Danforth Quayle, as his running mate. Quayle was only 41, but looked younger, and his perceived callowness became an immediate campaign issue. Quayle was born the same year that Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, his vice presidential opponent, mustered out of the U.S. Army.
On the campaign trail, Quayle had taken to deflecting concerns about his age by pointing out that his political resume mirrored John F. Kennedy's. This was accurate, as far as it went. Both Kennedy and Quayle had served a couple of terms in the House and a term in the Senate, followed by Senate reelection.
When the stand-in playing Quayle mentioned the President Kennedy angle during debate prep, Bentsen had an interesting reaction. Although Kennedy and Bentsen hadn't been close (and represented different wings in the Democratic Party) they had served in Congress together – and perhaps more importantly – had been in the military at the same time.
And though Bentsen never publicly explained why he considered Quayle's self-comparison to Kennedy presumptuous, as someone who covered the 1988 campaign I believe it was because of the differences in their military record: JFK had enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was wounded in the Pacific while winning medals for bravery. Quayle chose a billet in the Indiana National Guard to avoid combat in Vietnam.
(Bentsen himself flew B-24s during World War II and by the time the war ended, he had flown 35 combat missions, becoming a squadron leader and a U.S. Army major. He left the service in 1947 as a lieutenant colonel.)
Memories among Bentsen's campaign aides about the run-up to the debate later differed. Some said the famous put-down was rehearsed; some said Bentsen only hinted at what he was going to say. Some said they asked Bentsen not to do it, while others say they were encouraging.
Susan Estrich later recalled it this way:
"Three days earlier, in rehearsal, he had been shocked when the Dan Quayle stand-in compared himself to Jack Kennedy. Does he really do that? Bentsen asked at the time … Can I say something, Bentsen, ever the gentleman, asked us. We nodded enthusiastically. So as we sat backstage, and heard Quayle compare himself to Kennedy, I turned to the key supporters gathered in the holding room and said, ‘Here it comes.' And it did."
Bentsen's interjection comprised four short sentences:
"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."
From the moment Bentsen unloaded his zinger, there have been two ways to look at it. The first is that it was brilliant political stagecraft that upended a political opponent and is worthy of inclusion in any list of great debate lines. It entered the lexicon of politics immediately and was much copied. No less a performer than Ronald Reagan paid homage to it four years later at the 1992 Republican convention in a paraphrase that was simultaneously self-deprecating, a gentle needling of Bill Clinton, and a tip of the cap to Bentsen.
"This fellow they've nominated claims he's the new Thomas Jefferson," Reagan said. "Well, let me tell you something. I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine. And governor, you're no Thomas Jefferson."
The other way to look at Bentsen's zinger is that it was something of a cheap shot. First of all, the debate moderators had asked Dan Quayle three times why he thought he was qualified to be, in the parlance of the day, a heartbeat away from the presidency. He didn't claim to be John F. Kennedy; he was pointing out that others had been elected to high national office with similar qualifications.
Today, 36 years after the fact, we should grant Quayle's point. By today's standards, he was well-seasoned. In 2008, we elected a president, not a vice president, with less experience than Quayle – a Senate freshman. Eight years after that, we elected a candidate who never held elective office of any kind or served or served in the U.S. military. That's the man who picked J.D. Vance as his running mate.
Does any of this matter? It had little, if any, effect on Lloyd Bentsen or the 1988 national election. Despite the illustrious qualifications of his running mate, Michael Dukakis still lost to George H.W. Bush (another World War II combat pilot), although in an election law quirk, Bentsen was able to remain on the Senate ballot in 1988 in Texas. He won his own race handily.
When Lloyd Bentsen died 18 years ago, some 2,000 people attended is funeral. Bill Clinton delivered the eulogy.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on X @CarlCannon.
