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The gravest error the Republicans may have made was not resting their case with Barbara Bush. Instead they also spotlighted Marilyn Quayle as the symbol of their baby-boomer professional woman who gave it all up for the man she loves. Those worried about Hillary Clinton being a co-President (although in 11 years as First Lady in Arkansas, no one accused her of being co-Governor) should take a look at Mrs. Quayle's activities. She was her husband's campaign manager and has an office near his in the Old Executive Office Building, where she spends much of her time. In joint interviews, she doesn't hesitate to correct her husband.
An intelligent and capable manager who can rightly claim much of the credit for Dan's success, Marilyn Quayle has a vindictive streak that often undercuts her strengths. While aides go out of their way to point out what a nice guy her husband is, one Republican handler admits that "Marilyn doesn't have a lovable side."
Mrs. Quayle's personality and career choices should no more be a campaign issue than those of Mrs. Clinton. But the Vice President's wife has gone out of her way to criticize Hillary on points where she has labeled criticism of herself as unfair. When stories surfaced in 1988 about her parents' adherence to the teachings of Fundamentalist preacher "Colonel" Robert B. Thieme Jr., known for attacking homosexuals, liberals and the United Nations, she fumed that religion was a private matter. But recently she told a friend she considered it "very significant" that the Governor and his wife attended different churches.
While Mrs. Quayle is urging women who care about their children not to work, she is constantly buzzing around the world and the country helping her husband campaign to keep his job. Having adopted disaster relief as her personal crusade, she has visited numerous disaster sites in the U.S. and abroad during the past four years. Just last week she was off to Florida, as a highly visible member of the board of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. She has also traveled to all 50 states on behalf of the party, raising more than $1 million for the campaign. Almost any paying job, short of flight attendant, would give her more time at home with her kids.
And she has found time to co-author a potboiler novel called Embrace the Serpent and to take a nine-state book tour. Some critics point out, however, that she would never have landed a sweetheart book deal -- Crown Publishers churned out 75,000 copies instead of the usual 6,000 for a first novel -- if she had not been married to the Vice President. Marilyn Quayle's activities demonstrate nothing more than the fact that in the modern age, talented, ambitious women need not hide their skills nor divert their energies. Although politically unthinkable for a Republican at the moment, what would be wrong with a qualified lawyer like Marilyn Quayle -- or Hillary Clinton -- holding an important government job, if earned by merit? Robert Kennedy was his brother's Attorney General, and both the President and the country were well served.