Quayle’s only failure was being a policy wonk who could not voice his policies well enough to silence the vitriolic critics who wanted to make fun of his hair. He needed charisma, which many political nerds lack.
“Quayle’s only failure was being a policy wonk who could not voice his policies well enough to silence the vitriolic critics who wanted to make fun of his hair.”
Quayle was widely, if grudgingly, admired by many liberal-leaning Congressional staffers. I knew more than a few of them in the early 1980s, and Quayle was considered by them to be a serious, albeit somewhat wonkish, expert on both domestic economic policy and national security issues.