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The group reconvened Thursday morning. Quayle was to be nominated in twelve hours -- or was he? The top staff mulled the consequences of dumping Quayle from the ticket and quickly decided that it would be equivalent to conceding the election. "That was the low point of a bad day," recalls a Bush adviser. More realistic was the possibility of an updated Checkers speech: Quayle would appear with his parents. In the end, desperation ploys were judged unnecessary. An aide explains, "We realized we had a public relations problem, not a real problem."
Bush never wavered in support of the man he had lifted so high. "How's Danny doing?" he asked several times. But the Vice President never felt the compulsion to question Quayle face to face. The awkward investigation was left to Baker. Around noon, Quayle grew restive about answering further questions. "Let's go," he urged, but Baker pressed to know more. By early afternoon, the mood began to brighten in the Bush bunker. There were no new revelations; the media hurricane had for the moment blown out to sea.
Thursday night, Quayle was nominated by acclamation for Vice President. His acceptance speech was as energetic as it was forgettable. The Bush camp did decide, however, to wrap Quayle in the patriotic bunting of the National Guard. Signs appeared on the convention floor heralding GUARDSMEN FOR BUSH/ QUAYLE. The vice-presidential nominee won his loudest ovation when he declared, "I served six years in the National Guard . . . and I'm proud of that." It was textbook conservative confrontational politics: pit the millions of voters who are veterans of the National Guard against a lynch mob from the national media.
That strategy was apparent on Friday, when the Bush campaign decreed that Quayle was finally prepared to meet the press. The setting in Huntington, Ind., was akin to an outdoor version of the Morton Downey Jr. Show. Aides gathered reporters on the hill sloping from the courthouse in full view of a flag-waving crowd of 12,000 media-loathing Hoosiers. The Indiana Senator, coat off, strode boldly into the swarm of sweating, shoving reporters: Dan Quayle enters the lion's den. He spoke into a microphone that boomed his answers to the hometown faithful.
This was political theater, and Quayle displayed admirable fidelity to his prepared script. Several times he answered, "I got into the National Guard fairly. I did not ask anyone to break the rules." Asked if his war record would be a campaign problem, Quayle replied, "In a way, it might help. You are going to be surprised how outraged people and families who identify with the National Guard are going to be." With each question, the heckling grew louder. Finally, when Hoosiers chanting "Boring, boring" tried to drown out a questioner entirely, Baker belatedly ordered aides to quiet the raucous sideshow.
If the script holds, Quayle could in a week or two neutralize much of the damage to the Republican ticket. But Ferraro too won a short-term lift from her marathon face-off with the national press, only to see it all slip away in the swirl of new revelations. Ferraro is a reminder of how in recent years the seemingly simple selection of a compatible vice-presidential candidate has often been a ticket to political disaster.