Quayle Predicts New Congress Will Aid Bush

Vice President Dan Quayle predicted on Monday that 150 new members of Congress would be elected this year and claimed that would make it easier for President Bush to get his domestic agenda passed.

Quayle, opening a three-day California campaign swing in this broiling San Joaquin Valley city, told an airport crowd; “There’s no doubt that the American people have figured out that the Congress is the problem. Do you realize we will probably have at least 150 new members of Congress?”

Quayle’s California trip was designed in part to help the Republican ticket shore up its sagging strength in the state that accounts for one-fifth of the electoral votes needed to win.

A Field Poll taken in late July showed Bush trailing Democratic nominee Bill Clinton by an unprecedented 34 points, 62% to 28%, and the Orange County Register, which serves that conservative stronghold, urged Bush to drop out of the race.

Quayle called Bush “the best leader we have going for us. He is going to defeat Bill Clinton in California and around America.”

Sixty-five members of the House are retiring and 15 others have lost reelection bids. Quayle forecasts that at least 70 more will fall by the wayside, and he predicted a more conservative Congress will take their place.

“By having a new Congress, the President will be able to pass his jobs package, pass his education reform bill, pass his legal reform bill, pass his health care reform bill,” Quayle said.

“This Congress won’t do it, but a new Congress, working with this President, can get the job done.”

Quayle, back in the state where he launched his now-famous attack on television’s Murphy Brown for her out-of-wedlock birth last May, said: “I don’t care what my critics say, I’m not going to back down from talking about the importance of family values.”

“We even have Bill Clinton talking about family values,” he said. Quayle met with cattlemen in Stockton and planned to visit Sacramento, Bakersfield, Los Angeles and Orange County before returning to Washington on Wednesday night.