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Moreover, any setback to Bush's health before November would strengthen the Veep factor. In response to persistent rumors that he is ill, Bush and his doctor last week reiterated that his health is excellent, despite his bout last year with Graves' disease and his vomiting and collapse, caused by intestinal flu, at a state dinner in Tokyo last January. Reporters and staffers who try to keep pace with Bush find him exceptionally fit and energetic for a man of 68. Still, as a Bush friend observed, "he hasn't had much fun in this job lately, and that shows on his face."
Most G.O.P. strategists expect the 1992 election to be decided, as others have been, almost entirely on voters' judgments of the men at the top of the tickets. After the 1988 election, Republicans carefully studied the "Quayle factor," and found that the Vice President cost the ticket no more than 2% of the popular vote.
Representative Vin Weber, a Minnesota Republican whose political advice Bush values, bluntly recalls that Quayle "wasn't a popular choice in 1988, and suffered by contrast with ((Democratic vice-presidential nominee)) Lloyd Bentsen, and it didn't make any difference to the outcome." Says William Bennett, a former Cabinet member who remains close to Bush and Quayle: "When George Bush was at 85% in the polls, was Dan Quayle doing anything differently? No. Quayle has not set the world on fire, but he has done his job. He has been loyal, and he has appeal to the conservative base." Bennett, Weber and other top Bush advisers agree that removing Quayle would hurt the President more than it would help, by compounding the damage from his abandoned "no new taxes" vow. Says Bennett: "It would look like another broken promise: wobbly, panicky and inconsistent."
Some Republicans and reporters speculated that Secretary of State James Baker, who is expected next month to assume joint command of the Bush campaign and White House -- and who opposed the choice of Quayle in 1988 -- wants him replaced. Officials friendly with Baker, however, deny this, explaining that Baker's own presidential ambitions would not be served if one of his potential rivals in 1996 -- say, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney -- were elevated to the vice presidency.
More to the point, neither Baker nor most other top Bush advisers consider Quayle to be the President's main political problem. Says Bennett: "George Bush is where he is politically because of George Bush." Weber considers the Quayle debate "a harmful distraction" from "our core problem," which is "the credibility the President has lost on the economy and taxes. There is a strong feeling among the voters that the economy is crummy and that George Bush isn't going to do anything about it. We Republicans are not seen as credible agents of change in economic policy. And we can't fix that just with a negative campaign."