Monday memory: meeting Dan Quayle
Somewhere I have the book he signed, too. It was well proofread.
As I was writing a future edition (tomorrow evening) of a new feature I’m doing called “Tuesday Evening Reading,” one of the pieces I’d saved was this one from
.
It compared Dan’s offense of misspelling potato with the disqualifying legacy of “Tampon Tim the stolen valor man” Walz, but it also reminded me of my first brush with fame (before the Rushalanche.) So, like a potential odds and ends piece, it got promoted to its own post as a pleasant Monday memory.
In the summer of 1999, we had a presidential campaign going on. Bill Clinton couldn’t run again, and Republican hopes were high that they could get back into the White House. At that early stage, it’s about getting influential groups and volunteers, particularly in swing states, behind you, and so it was that Dan Quayle, who had tossed his hat into the 2000 election ring on an exploratory basis, had an appearance at the University of Toledo as part of a three-stop swing around northwest Ohio. (The coverage is online thanks to the Google News archive, but below I have the photos from the copy of the paper I’ve saved.) I’m sure he was trying to get support from their College Republicans, but the Young Republican leadership was invited to this little event as well and at the time I was one of their officers.
And you had to figure Quayle had as good a chance as anyone, given that he was the previous Republican VP and neither George H.W. Bush nor Bob Dole (who lost in 1996) were coming out of retirement. Quayle had a lot going for him: experienced (as a former Senator and VP), good looking for the ladies, relatively young - 52 at the time - and reasonably conservative. He had co-written a bestselling book a few years earlier on family values, which I have a signed copy of somewhere.
I saw the guy taking the photos at the gathering - heck, in a journalistic triumph, Jeremy Wadsworth got my name correct - and the next day there was a front-page (below the fold) story in The Blade, our local paper. (Not to pick on Jeremy, who’s still working for them after all these years. But a lot of people get my name wrong.) And there I was in the photo, speaking to VP Quayle in my shirt and tie and getting my book autographed. (The story itself talks about a fundraising dinner the local GOP had to honor a longtime Republican who died the year before.)
To be honest, I don’t recall what I said to Quayle - probably pleasantries about his book, which I found rather good as a stepparent with a fifteen year old daughter. But I’ve kept the photographic evidence, long before AI and fake news, that I met a former Vice President of the United States. I’m in the generation that saves those newspaper clippings - good luck finding one now.
The next year, I was probably 30 yards from then-candidate George W. Bush when he stopped by Toledo Express Airport since I was still an officer in the Republican Club. And Quayle was in the private sector, where he remains today.
Until next time, remember you can Buy Me a Coffee since I have a page there.
That was a great story. Thanks for sharing it. How sad an intelligent and articulate man was portrayed the opposite by the left while today bonified blithering idiots are ignored and even praised by the same left.