Interesting: Baker reveals Bush team wanted to dump Quayle in 92

[Greeby]

http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.wsj.com%2Fwashwire%2F2006%2F09%2F12%2Fdan-we-hardly-kept-ye%2F

Dan, We Hardly Kept Ye…

It turns out that the honchos running the first President Bush’s re-election campaign in 1992 wanted to dump Dan Quayle after all.

In a new book, top Bush adviser and former Secretary of State James Baker resolves one of the great debates about that presidential effort. He discloses that, as the embattled 41st president headed toward a tough — and ultimately unsuccessful — campaign, there were “some private meetings within the campaign’s inner circle” to figure out a way to nudge then-Vice President Quayle off the ticket. At one point, someone suggested that First Lady Barbara Bush “give Dan a nudge.”

The president nixed that idea, Baker writes. But Baker also makes it clear that he wishes Quayle had removed himself from the scene: “What was needed was to persuade the vice president to remove himself from the ticket and exit gracefully, stage right…I won’t speak for George, but I think it’s fair to say he would have accepted Dan’s decision if the vice president, on his own, had concluded that the best way for George to be seen as an agent of change (and thereby give us a chance to win) was to take himself out.”

But, of course, Quayle “did not take the hint,” as Baker reports. Ultimately, the president put an end to the movement by declaring Quayle would stay on the ticket. Baker gives Quayle credit for then doing good job as a campaigner. “Still,” he writes, “the biggest favor he could have done for the president — and the country, in my opinion—would have been to graciously take himself off the ticket.” –Gerald F. Seib

[AndyA]

1. Dan Quayle is a brilliant intellectual compared to Dubya.

And yet the dumb Republics voted for him anyway...

[whistle]

2. Jesus, they could do that now with Dubya, but then we would have

...Dick <nuclear button pusher> Cheney as president anfd that would not be so good.

[Benhurst]

3. That old gangster James Baker could have done the country an

even greater service by not ever having born.

[FSogol]

4. HA-ha, they think that adding Dole or Kemp to the ticket would have

allowed Bush I to win?

Forget it. Its the economy stupid.

[Gman]

5. This just pretty much confirms what everyone thought in '92

There were plenty of rumors that Quayle was gone, then all of a sudden, he wasn't. It was apparent that Bush I had nixed the idea and that was the end of it. This just confirms what everyone always thought.

[GeorgeGist]

6. A chip off the old block...

"The president nixed that idea". The biggest favor his idiot son could do for the country and the world would be to take himself off the planet.