From: rone@alcor.usc.edu (Ron Echeverri)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle
Subject: Re: Dem congressional candidate has Dan Quayle as fund-raiser
Date: 16 Aug 1992 14:42:55 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: alcor.usc.edu
Keywords: quirks, human interest, politics, computers, manufacturing, government officials, government


This is crossposted from clari.news.interest.quirks.  Copyrighted material,
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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	DES PLAINES, Ill. (UPI) -- Democrat Barry Watkins, who is trying to
oust Republican veteran Henry Hyde from Congress, plans to use Dan
Quayle as a fund-raiser, albeit without the vice president's active
participation.
	Watkins Monday unveils the (Unauthorized) Dan Quayle Spelling Checker
-- a fully functional computer spell-check program that will sell for
$19.92. Watkins hopes the humorous program will generate $300,000 in
contributions for his congressional campaign.
	``In all seriousness, I think it's pretty funny,'' said Watkins, 44,
of Park Ridge.
	Watkins, who has been a computer software writer for 15 years, said
he bought the rights to a 115,000-word basic spell-check program. He
embellished it with what he calls ``Dan Quayle Lite,'' a series of
quotations that pop up at the start of the program; a collection of
letters that Quayle could have written or received; assorted ``Quayle-
Speak,'' a collection of misspellings and word manglings, and a 
``Danasaurus,'' a thesaurus that not only provides synonyms but also
provides examples of how Quayle would use the word.
	``For example, failure. It's not there because Quayle says it's not
in his vocabulary,'' Watkins said.
	The collection of letters, Watkins said, includes one from President
Bush, expressing regret at not having been invited to Quayle's
daughter's wedding -- a jab at the recent answer Quayle gave when asked
what he would do if his daughter wanted an abortion.
	Among the quotes offered in the ``Dan Quayle-Lite'':
	On family: ``Republicans understand the importance of bondage between
a parent and a child.''
	On geography: ``I love California. I grew up in Phoenix, Ariz. A lot
of people forget that.''
	On career choice: ``I wanted to be a golf pro but my family pushed me
into politics.''
	On intellect: ``What a waste it is to lose one's mind or not to have
a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.''
	On responsibility: ``I am not part of the problem. I happen to be a
Republican.''
	``This is not a joke,'' Watkins said. ``This is just a fund-raising
tool. We also plan to make this available to other, probably Democratic,
candidates to use as fund-raisers on their own.''
	Watkins said he has a second program nearly written called ``The Road
to Congress.''
	``It hopefully shows what went into the decision to run for Congress
and some of the frustration. It's an adventure game with some animation,
'' Watkins said.
	Watkins said he decided to run for Congress last fall after a
Northwestern University survey indicated that 60 percent of the people
in the newly reapportioned 6th Congressional District did not know who
Hyde is or what positions he has taken.
	``I'm not a politician. I'm a businessman,'' Watkins said.
	He said he plans to use the funds raised through the sale of the
software to make Hyde's positions known in the district.
	``The positions he's taken would not be popular in this district if
the people put them with their man and put the man with the district. It
was kind of a Don Quixote decision to run. Even though there's not a
great chance of winning, Henry Hyde has not had any serious opposition
in a long time. The last candidate was a high school teacher who raised
$1,500 and spent $1,000. He was never really a candidate.''
	Watkins said he's prepared to spend $100,000 of his own money on the
campaign.
	Watkins owns FIPSCO Inc., a software writing firm, and has set up a
separate company, SoftHead Software, to write and sell his political
programs.
                               ------
	The Dan Quayle Spelling Checker can be ordered by calling 1-800-
SoftHead.

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5150
now where's the nearest pay phone