Can he spell potato?
This is the video of the campaign ad wherein Quayle makes his silly claim about Obama. It’s hard to believe, but this guy appears to be even more vacuous than his dad. And wtf is the weird little dip he does in the middle?
Actually, I contend it is wrong, stupid, foolish, to call Bush the Younger the worst president in history – not to mention abysmally ignorant of history. We did not descend into civil war, as James Buchanan’s indifference led us into in 1859. Nor we we experience the divisiveness and infrastructure destruction of Andrew Johnson’s “Reconstruction.”
This Wiki article does a good job of collecting various scholar and historian surveys addressing the quetion. In NONE does Bush 43 rank the worst; Harding, with his Teapot Dome scandl, Franklin Pierce, Buchanan, and Johnson consistently appear as the worst, rotating that honor amongst themselves.
Are you aware of any serious survey – historians, scholars, or indeed simply a survey that asks Democrats and Republicans in even numbers – that ranks Bush the worst?
The OP paved the way for the Bush vs. Obama topic, but that subject has been done to death and it’s outside the scope of this forum, which is about 2010 elections. Drop that subject or take it to Great Debates and let’s get this thread focused on Quayle’s race in Arizona.
Well, Quayle is running for a GOP-held seat in a GOP-leaning district in Arizona, so much of his battle is winning the August 24 primary, and he’s the lead fundraiser for that race, and he’s pitching himself as hard-right, which seldom seems to hurt GOP primary candidates.
Against that, we have the idiocy of his ad. But as my comments anove highlight, people seem to object to idiotic claims strongly when they disagree with their underlying thrust; outlnadish claims that reinforce the bias of the listener are treated with much more equanimity.
All of this speculation would fade with the introduction of some poll numbers, but I don’t seem to find any.
I found this, in which Quayle is second after Undecided. When I tried to get a link from the originating newspaper, the story about the poll was in a subscriber-only section.
Ten candidates!
That video is fucking brilliant! I love the bit where he says he’s gonna “Go to Washington and knock the hell outta the place!”
What the fucking fuck? The guy looks like Kenny the Page’s evil twin. He couldn’t knock the hell out of a piñata that was sitting on a chair. What a chump.
I guess he stands up at 0:20? But he doesn’t seem to get any taller. At first I thought he was busting a little “going to D.C. to kick ass” move.
Sure, but Undecided has a history of disappointing results on election day. He just polls high, then… drops.
d&r
Did Quayle support his claim about Obama with some well-reasoned arguments? I have to admit, regardless of any personal feelings, a president who has not yet served even half a term would have had to ignite World War III or something comparably destructive to the U.S. to qualify as worst ever.
Dan Quayle was one of the dumbest politicians in my lifetime. Not an evil guy, and probably a decent person. But hell, the man was i-g-n-o-r-a-n-t. The late night comedians loved him because he constantly put his foot in his mouth or up his ass everyday, usually in front of a moving camera.
Here are five pages of quotes from V.P. Dumbass, I mean, Quayle.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dan_quayle.html
This guy even made an issue of the show “Murphy Brown” when the lead character got pregnant without a father in the picture. Quayle tried to make some, again, dumbass point about being a single parent, but the alternative is abortion, and he was against that too. He mentioned Murphy Brown in a speech about the then recent LA riots. Quayle was such a tool that everyone laughed and mocked him (again).
Quayle was such a drain and an embarrassment on the administration that some wanted to drop him from the ticket in 1992. However, the perception would have been that Bush made bad decisions and was indecisive. Probably if Bush had a competant V.P. (like James Baker for example) who wasn’t such a fool, he might of squeaked out a victory over Clinton in 1992. Maybe, maybe not.
Quayle is now an investment banker, and the chairman of the international division of Cerburus Capital Management. Now, what this guy does for this company is up to debate. I mean, WTF, who is the CEO, Alvin Greene?
Now, I think he plays golf in Arizona, sits on some boards and gets a pension. Now, Mrs. Quayle is a smart woman who actually should of been the elected official, so I can only hope that the son got some smarts from her.
Meh. Companies will often hire someone like Quayle and give him a fancy title just so they can say, “Hey, look we got an ex-VP of the United States working for us,” which I guess would serve to give them added visibility as well as an air of prestige.
Plus it helps that Cerebus Capitol Management is something of a Republican rich man’s plaything, which appears determined to become an arms manufacturer.
Oh, and the CEO isn’t Alvin Greene, it’s Steve Feinberg.
Good summary and links at The National Ledger.
Following the link to the (un)official election results, it looks like Mr. Quayle has the lead amongst Republicans, and since there seem to be 42,000 Republican voters to about 17,000 Democratic voters, I’d say Mr. Quayle might have a shot at getting elected. Maybe.
Of course, I note that this 33 year old had to call in his parents to fight his fight for him at the very last minute. Not the kind of guy I’d want in Washington representing my interests, but hey, that’s just me.
That’s a shame. I know he had a shot with you before he had to call his parents.
By the way, I think it’s admirable how often you vote for Republicans.
How often was that, again?
If you don’t know how often, how do you know that you think it’s admirable?
It’s exactly the same number of times that I’ve voted for Democrats, btw.
How about you?
And what relevance does that have to this thread at all?
When you said, “Of course, I note that this 33 year old had to call in his parents to fight his fight for him at the very last minute. Not the kind of guy I’d want in Washington representing my interests, but hey, that’s just me,” you invite the reader to infer that but for Quayle’s decision to have his parents help his bid for office, you might have considered voting for him.
I’m tweaking you by suggesting that this is far from the truth, that in fact very little could have caused you to vote for Quayle.
Your further commentary leads me to believe you’ve never voted in a state or federal election.
As for myself, I’ve voted for Democrats before. I voted for Obama, in fact.
Or it could have been “I already had plenty of reasons not to vote for him, and here’s one more”.
Having a former Vice-President of the United States come in and campaign for you is a no-brainer, whether he’s your father or not. I’ll certainly find plenty to chide Quayle for during his Congressional career, but this isn’t it. Was it unfair? Was it dishonest? Was it cheating? The answer to all those questions is, “No.”
Unfair? No
Dishonest? No
Cheating? No
Was it indicative of an inability to stand on his own two feet, despite being 33 years of age, and indicative of a need to run to Mom and/or Dad or some other authority figure in his life whenever everything doesn’t go just his way? Or is it just especially vexing to all because as a Congressman, he’d be in a position to help himself, his parents and his parents’ friends?
See, if this was a case of calling in the former VP for a ringing endorsement, that would be one thing. But it wasn’t that one thing, it was another. This was a father taking umbrage at his son’s predicament.
[
](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/08/dan-quayle-comes-to-son-bens-d.html)
Mom got in on the act as well.
Plenty of other people, sure, but never another Republican!
I will make the bold prediction that should Mr. Quayle somehow someday find himself sitting in the US Congress, he will be clueless and little more than a lackey for his family’s rich and powerful friends.