1988 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION : ‘What Kind of Guy Is Dan Quayle?’ Question Planted Seeds of Selection

NEW ORLEANS — One day in early May, Vice President George Bush turned to Indiana Gov. Robert D. Orr as the two men were riding in Bush’s Secret Service limousine to an Indiana factory and asked, in what seemed at the time to be no more than an innocent question: “What kind of a guy is Dan Quayle?”

“A fine, fine person and a very effective conservative,” was his response, Orr said Tuesday.

The seeds planted in that conversation on May 2 blossomed at 2:06 p.m. CDT Tuesday. At that moment, Bush sat in the bedroom of the plantation-style home of the commander of the Belle Chasse Naval Air Station, in Algiers, La., just outside New Orleans, and placed a telephone call to James Danforth Quayle, a 41-year-old senator completing his eighth year in the U.S. Senate.

“You are my choice,” he told Quayle. “You are my first choice. You are my only choice. We are going to look to the future. And we are going to win by looking to the future.”

Quayle said OK, and with that telephone conversation, which lasted no more than five minutes, Bush completed a process that began months ago, choosing the Indiana senator to be his vice presidential running mate.

‘Very Tough Choice’

For Bush, said his new campaign chairman, James A. Baker III, “it was a very tough choice.” It was one that involved not only the signal he was trying to send by his choice of Quayle, the first member of the post-World War II baby boom generation to be selected for national candidacy, but also the rejection of nearly a dozen others, including several experienced politicians whom Bush could not afford to offend.

To that end, Bush went through a careful operation in which he notified each of those who were not chosen before word leaked out that Quayle had been picked--indeed, before Quayle and Bush had even spoken and Quayle had accepted.

“All those who were under serious speculative consideration or serious consideration were notified personally by the vice president before the announcement was made,” Baker said, stressing the word “personally” to plant a not-so-subtle reminder that Michael S. Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee, had been unable to reach the Rev. Jesse Jackson before word got out that Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas was his pick for the Democratic vice presidential nomination.

That failure led to the politically sensitive discussions between representatives of Dukakis and Jackson that dominated much of the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta last month.

All told, Bush made 10 calls during the early afternoon before he spoke with Quayle.

Told Reagan First

But even before the vice president spoke with those runners-up, even before he told his wife, Barbara, who his running mate would be, he told Ronald Reagan.

Just before he boarded Air Force One, its engines already beginning to whine, the President told reporters he did not know the vice president’s choice.

“I just tried to make a deal with George,” Reagan said. “I’d tell him where to find the best blackened redfish if he’d tell me who’s going to be vice president. . . . He hasn’t told me.”

With that, Bush--who was himself offered the second spot on the Reagan ticket in 1980 in a late-night telephone call as erroneous rumors spread through another Republican National Convention that the job would go to former President Gerald R. Ford--took his mentor aside and quickly told him the name of his choice, on the flight line of the naval air station.

Reagan, departing New Orleans, and Bush, arriving to claim his party’s presidential nomination, had met at the air station moments after the vice president landed. Bush had tantalized reporters aboard Air Force Two by telling them that he had hoped to make his decision about his running mate “by the time I got on this airplane, and I have.”

Asked when, specifically, he decided, Bush told the traveling press corps: “About the time I climbed on the plane. Today, with finality.” But he would give no hint of what that decision was.

No Meetings

Baker, who is perhaps closer to Bush than any of his other senior advisers, said the vice president “knew everyone (on his list) personally,” and while he spoke by telephone with some of the other potential vice presidential nominees, he had no meetings with them.

And, although a Washington lawyer, Robert Kimmitt, reviewed financial and other files on the potential candidates, the extent of such checks on Quayle was not clear.

Another adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Bush and Quayle had gotten to know each other on Capitol Hill. Bush’s constitutional duties include his largely ceremonial post as president of the Senate. However, the adviser seemed mystified about the extent of the relationship between the two.

Still, Jeff Nesbit, Quayle’s press secretary, was quoted in the National Journal magazine’s daily convention publication as saying that Quayle “often stops in to chat one-on-one at the Old Executive Office Building” with Bush.

And, according to Nesbit, Bush spoke with Quayle on the telephone July 25 to discuss the running mate’s position. One day later, Kimmitt visited Quayle to begin the financial and personal check, intended to help Bush avoid selecting a running mate tarred by a hidden but embarrassing background, and Quayle did nothing to discourage public speculation that he was on Bush’s list.

Moved Up Announcement

By Tuesday, that list--originally approximately a dozen--had been trimmed, if not officially, then by public speculation to no more than half that size. And, with a number of the candidates appearing uneasy in the spotlight, Bush decided to make his announcement.

“He didn’t want it to be a messy situation. So far, the hype and all was exciting,” a Bush adviser said, but Bush did not want the situation to degenerate into a teasing parody.

So, midway through his speech at a rally at New Orleans’ Spanish Plaza on the Mississippi River, the vice president suddenly shifted gears and said: “And now I’d like to make a significant announcement, ladies and gentlemen. . . .”

With that, a perspiring Dan Quayle stepped up from the crowd and joined Bush, on the rally platform and on the Republican ticket.

Staff writers Claudia Luther and Patt Morrison and researcher Edith Stanley contributed to this story.

CONVENTION HIGHLIGHTS 5 p.m. Call to Order. 5:35 p.m. Address by Sen. Pete Wilson. 6:20 p.m. Address by Sen. Bob Dole. 6:45 p.m. Nominating and seconding speeches. 7:35 p.m. Roll call of the states. 8:40 p.m. Adjournment. ABC, CBS and NBC will provide live coverage of the convention from 6 to 8 p.m. CNN will broadcast from 5 p.m. to the end of the session. Times listed are PDT.