The Republicans Family, Golf and Politics

By Margaret B. Carlson

"He is different from me. I'm 64 and he's 41," said George Bush of his rambunctious, arm-waving running mate. Bush's suggestion that 23 years was the most important distinction between Indiana's Senator Dan Quayle and himself set off a wave of son-of-Bush explanations for the Vice President's startling choice of a successor. But such a description shortchanges Bush and unduly enhances Quayle, whose life can be reduced, says John Palffy, his former Senate staff economist, to "family, golf and politics." The second-term Senator, of modest accomplishments, is a lot less qualified for the vice presidency than was the credential-laden Bush, an elder statesman by comparison, when he ran for the job in 1980.

But in one crucial respect, Quayle may be much like Bush. Deferential and eager to please, Quayle is more likely to be the kind of No. 2 Bush was and yearns to clone now: blindly loyal and deeply grateful. Already the exuberant Quayle seems willing to run on the list of trivial traits the Bush camp keeps hailing him for: youth (if elected, he will be the third youngest Vice President, behind John Breckinridge and Richard Nixon); good looks (made for TV, not the silver screen -- Robert Redford may have had a point when he wrote to Quayle complaining about the overdone comparisons); campaign skills (Quayle has been winning elections since he was 29); and family values.

This last seems to mean that Quayle has the requisite brood for competing in the campaign's family wars, not large enough to overshadow the podium-packing Bushes but appealing enough to get good press. Quayle lives a quiet, suburban life in McLean, Va., with three blond children and a handsome wife he married in 1972, ten weeks after their first date. The daughter of physicians, Marilyn Quayle is also a political "twofer": a lawyer who has decided not to work, she can appeal to the emerging Gloria Steinems of the G.O.P. without threatening the Phyllis Schlaflys.

Quayle's upbringing was almost as charmed as Bush's. Born in Indianapolis into the Pulliam publishing family, whose newspapers rank 18th in circulation nationwide and whose fortune is estimated at somewhere above $1 billion, Quayle moved to Arizona when his father took over public relations for part of the newspaper chain there. He developed a lifelong affection for golf and Senator Barry Goldwater, in that order. The family returned to Indiana during his senior year of high school, when Quayle's father became publisher of the Huntington Herald-Press. Quayle immediately became a member of the "A clique" there, according to classmates. Sunny and affable, he was jokingly called Eddie Haskell by his friends, for the Leave It to Beaver character who is forever ingratiating himself with adults.

Too slight for football, he concentrated on golf, somewhat to the exclusion of grades. Then he went off to small, nearby DePauw University, where he played more golf, joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and earned grades so mediocre (a D in his major, political science) that 13 years later, the faculty initially voted to deny him an honorary degree, although it subsequently reversed itself.

After graduating from DePauw in 1969, Quayle made a decision that would cause him much anguish 19 years later: to join the National Guard with the help of well-connected family friends. Thus preserved from combat duty, he continued on his course, enrolling in Indiana University law school at night and embarking on a series of statehouse jobs during the day, including a stint in the Governor's office. After graduating, Quayle headed straight for the family business as associate publisher of the Huntington Herald-Press. Two years later, Republican Party leaders asked him to run against eight-term Democratic Congressman Edward Roush. He proved an energetic and engaging campaigner, and to the surprise of his own party backers, he won.

Quayle raised eyebrows in the party again in 1979, when he decided to challenge three-term Senator Birch Bayh. He was in the midst of his second undistinguished term in the House, where, according to former Democratic Congressman Floyd Fithian, "nobody, and I mean nobody, took Quayle seriously." Although Quayle would later call some of the New Right's tactics "detestable," he got help from Fundamentalist Christians and the National Conservative Political Action Committee. Brochures printed by Quayle's campaign committee suggested that Bayh supported homosexuality, sex education and federal control of church youth camps. Quayle won.

Shortly after his victory over Bayh, the second blunder of Quayle's political life came to light. Pursuing his first love, golf (he plays three times a week and has a seven-stroke handicap), he joined two other Congressmen for a weekend in a Florida cottage with Lobbyist and later Playboy Model Paula Parkinson. He left the day after Parkinson arrived, but not before an evening of dinner and dancing. The ensuing scandal died quickly for Quayle after an investigation that showed no impropriety. Quayle easily won his next election in 1986, when six Senators who had come in on Reagan's coattails lost. The race was not the best test of his appeal: his little-known, grossly underfinanced opponent did not air one ad or post a single mailing.

Quayle, who hired a good Senate staff, has been more active in the upper chamber than in the House. He is still a hard-line conservative, earning ratings in the high double digits from the American Conservative Union. He voted in favor of funding the contras and for a military buildup, especially the Strategic Defense Initiative. Although he came around in the end, he initially opposed the INF treaty as too soft on the Soviets. He would recriminalize abortion and deny workers 60 days' mandatory plant-closing notification. He has an uneven record on civil rights, and he led the successful fight in 1986 to confirm conservative Federal Judge Daniel Manion. His tactics there offended not only foes but also fellow Republicans. He sought to change the vote of Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum on the Senate floor by jumping up and down and shouting at her.

But Quayle can also surprise. In 1982 he abandoned Jesse Helms and voted with his Indiana Republican colleague Richard Lugar against voluntary school prayer and, in 1986, to override Ronald Reagan's veto of economic sanctions against South Africa. As a freshman Senator, he was the Republican behind the 1982 Job Training Partnership Act, which encourages companies to train workers for jobs tailored to local needs.

There are signs that Quayle has been growing in his job, that he is no longer (if he ever was) the dumb blond his detractors claim. But he is still a long way from having the temperament and experience needed in the person a heartbeat and a brain wave away from the presidency. In the end, Quayle may be less like Bush than Ronald Reagan -- the "luckiest person in the world," according to Law School Classmate Frank Pope of Indianapolis. He may yet occasionally have to be told where to stand and what to say, but so far that has not kept him from almost always walking off with the prize.

With reporting by Ted Gup/Washington and Alessandra Stanley/New Orleans