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President Dan Quayle

I like the font on his 2000 campaign logo:

Quaylelogo.png
 
KingCrawa said:
Wouldn't happen as shortly after Bush Snr dies, Quayle would have a "mysterious accident" and "somehow cut his head off while shaving"
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A Senator (I think) got into trouble for joking that if anything happened to Bush, the Secret Service were under orders to shoot Dan Quayle, but I can't remember who it was.
 
I suspect, like in President Spiro Agnew TLs, DQ will be told very firmly by the Republican leadership that he is a figurehead, that the Congressional Republicans and DQ's Cabinet will run the Administration, and DQ will get no support from the Party if he runs in the 1992 primaries.
 
The Lone Centurion said:
I suspect, like in President Spiro Agnew TLs, DQ will be told very firmly by the Republican leadership that he is a figurehead, that the Congressional Republicans and DQ's Cabinet will run the Administration, and DQ will get no support from the Party if he runs in the 1992 primaries.
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None of that is enforceable.

And it's not like Quayle didn't have supporters, the right loved him because he was seen as 'one of them' in a time of the exclusion of the right from the administration, and he had strong supporters to back him up on that. I mean he had Bill Kristol as his chief of staff as VP, he wouldn't exactly be on a wing and a prayer against primary challenges.
 
Since I didn't answer the question earlier, he'd do a lot worse than Bush, of course. Domestically you probably get the politics of shutdowns half a decade earlier than OTL and he'd be almost inevitably more veto-happy than Bush was. He'd make an ass of himself over the fall of Communism but I'm not sure there's any practical consequences there given the timeframes involved. It'd undermine Gorbachev and probably accelerate the coup but by the turn of the decade the whole thing was on a sharp downward spiral anyway.

Potentially no Souter nomination at first glance, but Quayle probably makes an ass of himself over that and maybe nominates someone like Edith Jones who wouldn't make the final cut, so like Kennedy he might be returned to as a backup 'stealth' choice. Also more chance of Thomas being borked ITTL given the greater incompetence and political polarisation.

Assuming Iraq still happens the chances of him pushing onto Baghdad are a lot higher (As I say, Chief of Staff Bill Kristol) and so by 1992 he may be saddled with no domestic accomplishments, an occupation, and the early nineties recession and he'd be pretty roundly beaten by a higher-profile Democrat than Clinton, possibly Gore as he was the most ambitious of the OTL high profile refuseniks, but he'd be saddled with an Iraq vote in which unlike the OTL 2000s follow-up, most Congressional Democrats voted against and ITTL would think themselves 100% justified in doing so by 1992, most like. Also there's of course no 9/11 so dissent is fairer game. The DLC wing of the party is going to potentially get caught out by the general change in the mood music.

The mythology of defeat for the right is in big trouble if Perot doesn't run, less so if he does. The budgetary situation will be worse ITTL but Perot had specific intra-Texas anti-Bush prejudices so who knows. It's also conceivable you get a more obviously Republican third party candidate. Ultimately I think this scenario gives Democrat Liberals a shot in the arm and mainstreams the post-Reagan right earlier.
 
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