Dan Quayle was a Republcian U.S. Senator from Indiana. and not a very well-known Senator, when George H.W. BuSh chose him as his 1988 running mate. Quayle took a lot of heat from critics who derided him as an intellectual lightweight.
Bush won that election, and Qualye became America’s 44th vice president.
But the 1992 camapign proved more difficult for Bush and Quayle.
It was in June of ’92 that Quayle visited an elementary school in New Jersey. It wa supposed to be just another routine campaign photo-op, a school spelling bee.
A 12-year-old boy went up the blackboard to spell his word, “potato.” But Quayle “corrected” him, insisting there was an “e” at the end of “potato.”
Things just kind of went downhjll from there.
I first met Dan Quayle about two years later, after he’d written a memoir. And as you’re about to hear, he had a sense of humor about The Potato Incident.
Here now, from 1994, Dan Quayle:
Dan Quayle is now 73. He lives with his wife Marilyn in retirement in Arizona. They’ve been married for 47