LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Dan Quayle : The Vice President on Values, Clinton and the Campaign

It’s Tuesday afternoon at the Northrop plant in El Segundo. While his boss is touring the factory and wooing defense workers, Vice Presidential Press Secretary Dave Beckwith is making a phone call to a reporter in Boston. He’s miffed about what he sees as an unfair slant in the writer’s story about his boss, Dan Quayle.

Beckwith makes a lot of these kind of calls. Almost since the day George Bush named him as his running mate in 1988, J. Danforth Quayle has been a favorite target of political reporters and the subject of myriad talk-show punch lines. Quayle has given them plenty of ammunition. So numerous are his gaffes that a publication, the Quayle Quarterly, was created just to enumerate them.

Yet the man who added a superfluous “e” to a schoolboy’s spelling of “potato” has proved to be a potent fund-raiser for the GOP and a stalwart voice for the nation’s conservatives. Even his rivals admit he’s gotten a bum rap. Democratic Rep. Jill Long, who was defeated by Quayle in the 1986 Indiana Senate race, calls him, “The nicest person I’ve ever been in political competition with.”

Quayle was elected to the House of Representatives in 1976--he was just 29 years old. Four years later, he surprised political pundits by upsetting incumbent Birch Bayh in a race for U.S. Senate. Since taking office as vice president, he’s put together what almost everyone in Washington agrees is a highly skilled and professional staff.

Still, he can’t seem to stay out of trouble. In fact, sometimes he seems to ask for it. He took on the nation’s lawyers in seeking reforms to limit damage awards. Trying to capture the high ground on morals, he attacked Hollywood for being out of touch with America’s traditional family values. His spat with “Murphy Brown”--he criticized the show for glorifying the title character’s unwed motherhood--won him lots of new enemies among the entertainment community. Now, with the faltering economy dominating the campaign, the issue of family values seems to have missed the mark with voters.

At 45, Quayle clearly harbors political ambitions. Almost every prognosticator writes him off as a presidential candidate in 1996 should his ticket fail to win reelection in November. Still, Quayle has shown a remarkable skill for that most valuable of political assets--survival.

Question: There’s still a problem with the public’s perception of Dan Quayle. I’m wondering why, after four years in office, people don’t take you seriously, the way you might want them to?

Answer: Oh, they take me seriously! They may not agree with me, but they take me seriously--whether I’m talking about Hollywood or speaking out on legal reform. Look at the reaction we got from Hollywood, if you don’t think they take us seriously.

Look, I had a bad campaign in 1988. And you don’t have any chance to erase that damage, you’re onto a different job. This office doesn’t lend itself toward enhancing one’s reputation. We started out at a rather low point, and you can’t change that a lot. But you can speak out for what you believe in, and I don’t mind being criticized for that.

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Q: But what about all the jokes on TV talk shows--the ridicule? Is the motivation just because people disagree with you?

A: I think so. They probably wouldn’t say the same things about someone who has a liberal philosophy. But look, it goes with the territory. The President one time said, “If you think you’ve got a lot of jokes and criticism coming your way, I’ve got a whole drawer full of comments when I was vice president that I’ll share with you.” And I said, “No, thanks.” It happens to all vice presidents.

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Q: If Hollywood is out of touch with the rest of America and its values, why do so many people go to the movies and watch the T V shows produced here? Why do entertainment companies make so much money?

A: Well, the reports suggest the contrary. Attendance at the box office is going down. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that, one, Hollywood does not reflect the values of the American people, and, two, if they did have movies and television shows which reflect our values better, they would do quite well.

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Q: What is it about Hollywood that makes it divorced from the rest of the nation?

A: First, it’s very homogenous. The political ideology is certainly out of step with the rest of the country. I think it’s about 80% (of the people in the entertainment business) who identify themselves as liberals, while 20% of the American people identify themselves as liberals. They’re simply out of step.

This is what I find strange. You know where the real censorship (in Hollywood) is? It’s in the middle echelon. It’s very hard for you to get career advancement, up through the writers and that whole organization, if you are conservative. I’ve had so many letters from people who are conservative saying, “I will not give you my name, but what you are saying is absolutely right. And the reason I won’t give you my name is because I fear for my job.” They know it’s better for them to either be quiet or be liberal. Is that a real nice, open, tolerant society? Not terribly.

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Q: The Times published a poll this week of Orange County voters that showed only about 6% of the respondents identifying family values as a major issue in the campaign. Does that surprise you?

A: I don’t know how the question was asked, but I can tell you people in California and around the country know that traditional values are important. We’re talking about hard work, personal responsibility and integrity.

Is it the No. 1 pressing issue? No, jobs is the No. 1 pressing issue. But there is a relationship between values and jobs. We feel families are strengthened through low taxes and less regulation, less government involvement. By strengthening families, you’ll have better job opportunities, better economic opportunities--so there is a connection. I’m not saying family values is as important as jobs or health care or choice in education. But it is an important issue.

If you sit down and have a discussion with a group of people, I guarantee you it will eventually turn to values. It will turn to what is wrong and what is right with America, what’s wrong and right with our schools, what’s wrong and right with our neighborhoods. That’s values.

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Q: Are you feeling at all that the economy has overshadowed some of the other issues in this campaign?

A: It certainly is the dominant one. But, for instance, health care is also a critical issue. When you have small businesses that can’t provide health care, they don’t get good workers. Costs are staggering. The average family in the year 2000 will spend $12,000 on health care. That’s got to be reformed. I wish we had time in this campaign to talk more about the health-care agenda the President has.

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Q: What do you think are the overriding concerns of conservatives in this country today?

A: I’d say the economy. Conservatives are adamant that we pass capital-gains tax-rate reductions to stimulate the economy. They’re adamant that a $5,000 or $10,000 tax credit for first-time home-buyers be passed. They’re adamant that regulations be curtailed as much as possible for economic growth. I’d say jobs and the economy are the overriding concerns of conservatives.

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Q: Can you win this election without winning California?

A: Yes. It makes it more difficult. We want to win California, we think we will win California. But certainly we can win without it.

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Q: Can you win California without Orange County?

A: Now that would be exceedingly problematic. I haven’t seen any scenario that says we would win California without Orange County. Theoretically--of course. Practically--no.

It’s been a struggle. California is having a very difficult time. You’ve got a real-estate problem, you’ve got a financial crunch, you’ve got banks that aren’t loaning money. Unfortunately, businesses are looking elsewhere. It used to be, “Go to California.” Now they are looking at other options. I love California, but times are difficult.

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Q: Let’s talk about the most recent candidate to enter the race. What’s your greatest concern about Ross Perot?

A: What’s he gonna do? That’s my biggest concern. I don’t know what he’s going to do. I don’t know what kind of campaign he’s going to run. I don’t know whether it will be a national campaign, or a campaign just against the President. I don’t know.

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Q: Do you have concerns about how his presence will affect your campaign?

A: Not really. Obviously, there are some states, like California, that he helps us in. There are other states where he may hurt us a bit. It just depends on how much support he has, and what he’s going to do. What’s he going to do with his money? Is he going to come to California and campaign, or is he going to run it from Dallas? We don’t know.

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Q: It sounds like he’s going to mostly stay in a TV studio.

A: If he stays in a TV studio and he does it nationally, that could possibly help the President. But, it’s a wild card. I think a lot depends on how he handles himself in the debates. I really wish he would continue to focus on the deficit. It’s a major problem and that’s a major contribution he can make to the campaign. It seems the issue is raised every once and a while, when he brings it up, but we ought to talk about it more. It’s of critical importance. Washington is mortgaging our children’s future. We’ve got to get serious about reducing this budget deficit. Ross Perot talks a lot about that, and that’s good.

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Q: What’s your thinking on the coming vice-presidential debate? What issues do you want to focus on?

A: We’re going to have a moderator. The moderator will introduce an issue, we’ll each respond--and then we have about a 5-minute free-for-all. I think it will be very interesting. It will be unique. It’s never been tried before. I’m looking forward to it.

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Q: Do you feel like jobs and the economy will be the major issues?

A: You’ve got 90 minutes, so there will be a lot of time spent on it. And I’m sure that every question that Sen. Gore gets, he’ll try to talk about the economy, and nothing else. I’ll talk about it, but I’ll be talking about other items as well. Like the future and how we can help our children, help senior citizens, small business, reform health care and our legal system--we’ve got a lot of items on the agenda. But the economy tends to dominate.

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Q: Do you have just a tiny little shred of sympathy for Bill Clinton on the issue of military service.

A: Well, yes and no. I think it’s unfair to dwell on his military service, whether he served or not. I thought it was quite unfair to somehow indicate that my serving in the National Guard was not patriotic. So I can understand that. But what I don’t understand is his unwillingness to come forth and just get rid of the issue. Just answer the questions. He said a few weeks ago he’s not answering any more questions. I can’t imagine what the media would have said if I had indicated in 1988 that I was not answering any more questions! There would have been a total meltdown. No, I certainly have sympathy with him over military service. I don’t think that’s the issue. The issue is whether he’s really come clean with the American people, and that’s what he still hasn’t answered.

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Q: What do you say to a voter who is still on the fence--who perhaps is disappointed in the Bush Administration but not fully comfortable with the Clinton-Gore ticket?

A: A couple of things. One--please listen to the President and understand his agenda for the future. Understand what he wants to do in creating jobs through capital-gains rate reductions. Understand how he wants to have the economy grow through empowering people and less regulation. Appreciate him advancing choice in education. Acknowledge him in trying to take on and reform the legal system. Work with us to reform the health-care system, to drive down costs and make health care available to all. And please stick with us when it comes to a strong, national defense. Peace is too important. Our status as a superpower is too important.

Also, you need to think long and hard about the character, the trust-worthiness, the qualifications and the capability of Bill Clinton. Do you really want him to be President? Would you trust him to take charge of this country? Do you trust him to make decisions based on the best interests of the people, or do you think that he really wants to have both sides of all issues, and that he’ll equivocate and allow the special interests to run this country? Think hard about the choice you are going to have to make. It’s a difficult choice, but one that is critically important to America.