For a while George Bush made it possible to forget about Dan Quayle. The Vice President, whose name has become a worldwide synonym for a man in over his head, faded into near invisibility as Bush dominated the headlines with his forceful leadership in Panama and the Persian Gulf. Watching the frenetic President jog and swim, angle for bonefish and gun his speedboat, few thought of him as an ordinary mortal nearing his 67th birthday.
But that all changed on May 4, when Bush pulled up short of breath while jogging at Camp David. His doctors quickly detected an irregular heartbeat and rushed him to Bethesda Naval Hospital. As it turned out, the President had not suffered a heart attack. But hearts across the nation and around the world began to fibrillate at the thought that Quayle might suddenly be thrust into the most powerful position on earth.
On May 6, Bush briefly considered transferring his powers to the Vice President under the 25th Amendment so that doctors could put him under general anesthesia and administer an electric shock to stabilize his heartbeat. The treatment proved unnecessary, and tests later showed that Bush's condition was caused by Graves' disease, a noncontagious thyroid ailment that, coincidentally, also afflicts First Lady Barbara Bush. The condition is usually manageable with drugs and low doses of radiation. Bush returned to the White House early last week and resumed work, albeit at a slightly less frantic pace.
But while the President seemed to be returning to normal, the rest of the country continued to suffer from the shakes. New polls showed that most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, harbor deep doubts about Quayle. This public sentiment is echoed, with refinements, by senior White House officials and other top Republicans, most of whom concede privately that they are highly uncomfortable with the prospect of Quayle's replacing Bush. Their consensus is that Quayle, while harder working and more capable than his public image suggests, will never develop the broad grasp of issues or the commanding presence to serve as an effective Chief Executive.
Such public and private assessments of Quayle have revived speculation -- and fervent hope -- that Bush will drop him from the 1992 G.O.P. ticket. Those who know Bush best, however, are sure that those hopes will be dashed unless Quayle becomes so much of a liability that he threatens Bush's chances to win a second term. G.O.P. strategists calculate that dumping him would pose more political risks than keeping him on the ticket. The biggest danger of a switch would be damage to Bush's credibility, which, despite his victory in the gulf war, remains strained by his flip-flops on abortion, gun control and especially taxes. "The President has been taking heat on Quayle for so long that if he dropped him now, the political damage would be 10 times worse than it was on taxes," says a senior Republican strategist. "The President would look like just another scum politician, and one of the main things he has going for him is that the public sees him as more honorable and principled than that."
True to form, Bush rushed to Quayle's defense last week. Asked what he thought of the cries for the Vice President's replacement, Bush half-jokingly ) threatened to flip an obscene gesture at reporters, saying "Do you want that by word or by hand?"