Politics & Power Quote by Dan Quayle

Quayle’s line is the kind of overreach that accidentally reveals the job’s deepest insecurity: the vice presidency is supposed to matter, but it’s structurally designed not to. So he borrows borrowed authority. By invoking George H.W. Bush as the template, Quayle isn’t just praising a predecessor; he’s trying to launder his own credibility through a figure whose resume (CIA director, China envoy, UN ambassador) made him legible as a grown-up in the room. It’s an appeal to competence by association, aimed at voters and insiders nervous about whether Quayle, dogged by gaffes and questions about experience, could plausibly be “a heartbeat away.”

The subtext is defensive and aspirational at once. “Very much like” signals an anxiety about improvising a role that has no clear mandate. The vice presidency, especially pre-Cheney, was a portfolio of tasks assigned by the president, not a platform built by the officeholder. So Quayle frames effectiveness as loyalty and usefulness: a vice president as an instrument, not a rival.

Then there’s the bravado of “perhaps the most effective we’ve had in a couple of hundred years,” a sweeping claim that does two things. It flatters Republican continuity (Reagan-Bush as a governing brand) while quietly lowering the bar: if the best vice president in two centuries is the guy known for being steady, not transformative, effectiveness means staying out of trouble and executing orders. In the late-80s context, that was the pitch: reassurance dressed up as ambition, with just enough hyperbole to sound confident rather than candid.