Declares He Reached a ‘Certain Snapping Point’ : Quayle Says He’ll Direct Own Campaign

INDIANAPOLIS —  Declaring that he had reached a “snapping point,” Republican vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle asserted Wednesday that he was taking personal control of his election effort and discarding his automatic acceptance of the dictates of the Bush campaign.

Quayle has come under stiff criticism while adhering religiously to the Bush campaign’s script. After last week’s vice presidential debate, he was roundly criticized as appearing too programmed.

The Indiana senator said he would stay in “close communication” with the vice president’s advisers but would not necessarily follow their orders.

“They’re going to suggest things that I say and suggest things that I do and I’ll take that under consideration,” he said.

Beleaguered Effort

But it remained to be seen whether Quayle’s pronouncement represented an extraordinary public break with the Bush operatives or rather a concerted effort by the same aides to change public opinion about the senator’s often-beleaguered effort.

A Quayle aide said Wednesday that rather than separate himself from the overall campaign, the senator was trying to correct an incorrect “perception” that he was being held in check by Bush aides.

Quayle denied that his remarks about taking control of the campaign were themselves a command from Bush advisers.

“That’s part of my script,” he said.

Quayle described his assertions as an outgrowth of accumulated events since the Republican National Convention in New Orleans last August. But he and his campaign staff--few of them Quayle loyalists--acknowledged that he decided to speak out after hearing caustic critiques from unidentified Bush aides after the vice presidential debate in Omaha last week.

“Lookit, I’m going to go out these last four weeks. . . . I’m just going to let it rip,” Quayle told reporters in Indianapolis before flying to South Dakota and Montana for campaign events.

“I’m going to have fun. I’m going to say what’s on my mind.”

Quayle said Wednesday that he reached his conclusions last Friday.

‘Certain Snapping Point’

“I think that there is a certain snapping point that everyone goes through and it snapped about Friday sometime,” he said. “I just said: ‘Lookit, I’ve done it their way thus far and now it’s my turn.’ ”

Quayle said that he has not asked for changes in the Bush-Quayle staff that accompanies him on his campaign swings nor would he ask for changes at Republican headquarters in Washington.

“I’m not mad at anybody in the Bush campaign,” Quayle said, then attempted to diffuse questions with a joke: “Actually, I called a staff meeting this morning and no one showed up. So something’s going on.”

And while Quayle said that he decided on Friday to speak his own mind, he has since then delivered only the routine, carefully scripted speeches written for him by the Bush campaign hierarchy.

On Wednesday, he spoke before a small audience of students in Rapid City, S.D., and later appeared at a job training school, delivering standard remarks.

The only apparent change in the campaign since Friday has been a new give-and-take with the national press corps following him.

Beginning Friday night, Quayle has wandered to the rear of his plane, where the press corps is seated, for on-the-record chats. Previously, Quayle had only occasionally submitted to private discussions with reporters.

The on-the-record talks have occurred almost exclusively in late evening, after television and newspaper correspondents have filed stories based on the formal message of the day.

Quayle has not held a press conference since Sept. 15, when in Moore, Okla., he answered questions for less than 20 minutes. In that setting, Quayle first called the Holocaust an “obscene period in our nation’s history.” Then, trying to clarify his remarks, the senator added: “We all lived in this century. Well, I didn’t live in this century, but in this century’s history.”

Change in Direction

Quayle signaled a potential change in direction late Monday night, when he half-joked to reporters on his plane that he was going to take over the spin--the habit of politicos to offer their version of the truth. “I am Dr. Spin,” he said, laughing.

On Tuesday night, Quayle told ABC News that he was “tired of all the bad publicity” and was going to call the campaign shots.

Later, on his campaign plane traveling from Great Falls to Missoula, Mont., Quayle said he was seeking a spontaneous campaign. “It was a very controlled environment,” he said. “I don’t operate very well in a real controlled environment.”

Quayle’s assertion that he was freeing himself from control by his handlers also was the lead story in Wednesday’s Washington Post, a copy of which was closely scrutinized by high-level Bush staffers aboard an airliner headed for Los Angeles Wednesday.

One senior Bush aide, Richard Darman, pointed to the story and then turned to media consultant Roger Ailes and signaled with an upraised thumb.