I'm not old enough to know but I have to think the MSM beat the heck out of Reagan as CA Gov and he came back. The MSM beat up Nixon as Ike's VP. Any older Freepers able to give some perspective and compare the attacks on Nixon as VP and Reagan as Gov to Quayle?
It was 1992. Bush and Quayle were running as incumbents and were unlucky enough to have a medium-sized "soft patch" recession during election year. And the "duh" move of reneging on "no new taxes" didn't help either. With that, a moderately conservative 3rd party, a ruthless Clinton campaign, and the somewhat incoherency of the Bush message (we don't even need to mention Old Media's "help"), Clinton squeaked into the Office with an unrespectable 43%. Quayle was portrayed as negatively as being unintelligent.
As for 2000, his campaign never took off. I couldn't say what happened.
But passed time has a way to heal old wounds and 13 years is plenty to put the past where it belongs. We don't need to argue about whether he's intelligent. What's clear is that the MSM stuck that to him. But today they no longer have the carte blanche they had in 1992. We have bloggers, FR, FNC and the likes. I think he has a good chance at getting a fair shake if he hits the ground running with his agenda. The Weekly Stand with Kristol will help, too.
I don't even need to mention that he's emminently qualified for the Office. At least, that's how I feel. America can never have enough pro-family, pro-values, pro-defense committed conservatives like Dan. The man has depth and vision.