From: madhaus@netcom.com (Maddi Hausmann)
Subject: Actual Dan Quayle Interview
Organization: Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 04:59:27 GMT

This interview was conducted by Cal Thomas, a foaming-at-the-mouth 
Reactionary Religious Rightwing columnist.  For example, his column
today posits the theory that Bush lost the election by not supporting
the Republican Right's position strongly enough, and that Bush's
approval numbers went up whenever he discussed Family Values.  (Cal
obviously has not seen the exit polls that asked people what they
thought the most important issues were in this election.  Only 7%
mentioned "Family Values" AT ALL.)

Interview held on Thursday [November 5th] at Quayle's office in the
White House.  Any comments by me are in <>'s.
*****
Q: What did you mean when you said if Clinton runs the country the
   way he ran the campaign, we'll be OK?

A: He ran a very good campaign, very effective, very competent.  So
   if he's effective and competent as a president then we'll be OK.
   But we'll see what kind of policies he will implement.  We'll
   see what kind of people he's going to pick.  I would say that 
   the level he established during the campagin was a pretty high
   level.

Q: Was the GOP convention, the way it was handled, a mistake?

A: No. <snicker>  This is just the liberal media <guffaw> ranting
   and raving <chortle> about something that never really happened.
   Traditional values are important.  <to six percent of the country.>
   Family values are important.  Our country is steeped in values.
   They are an important part of our life, our culture.  It's
   nonsense.  <What, your comments?>  They try to focus on other
   things besides what the president said.  <I believe he said the
   economy was fine and that's why he lost, Dan.>  The media got
   it wrong on this one.  <Hey, they just rolled the cameras.>

Q: Will it be GOP fratricidal warfare within the Republican Party,
   and how do you see a role for yourself in holding together the
   various coalitions between now and 1996?  <no, 1994!>
<note that Cal doesn't challenge that final remark that the media
 misreported what happened at the convention.>

A: You just don't know. <You sure don't.>  Obviously, we have to
   pick up the pieces and move on, putting them back together.  
   There will be a sorting-out process, but we'll have to wait and
   see.  A lot of people will be maneuvering and posturing, trying
   to figure out what to do.  There will be couple of <sic> key
   battles coming up, including the Republican National Committee
   chairmanship coming up in January.  I'm going to speak to the
   Republican National Conference on Nov. 15 and outline where I
   think we ought to go.

Q: There will be much debate on how the Republican Party needs to be 
   restructured for a comeback in 1996.  Some say people like Pat
   Robertson focus too much attention on the religious right.  Others
   say it was the center that won for the Democrats and Republicans
   need to return to the center.  Realizing that four years is a 
   lifetime in politics, if you were heading up an effort to re-energize
   the GOP, how would you do it?

A: You've got to focus on the economy <hmm, you finally figured that
   out?>, the pocketbook issues.  What are you going to do for people?
   Jobs, education, health care, legal reform.  But you've also got to
   focus on the politics of culture.  You've got to focus on what
   strengthens families, what families need to stay together and work
   their problems out.  <Well, Dan, which is it?  You seem to be pulling
   a Clinton, here.>  I would hope there would be a lot of emphasis on
   our children because they are our future.  I talked a lot about a
   poverty of values that is challenging this country.  <And the folks
   in LA you talked to about it thought you were on Mars.>  Institutions
   like Hollywood and the media can also help us out in this politics of
   culture.  <Why should they?  You weren't very nice to them before.>

Q: Speaking of the media, your wife told me two weeks ago that you might
   be interested in returning to the family newspaper business and 
   possibly even starting a cable television news network.  <AHA!  No
   wonder Bush opposed that Cable Regulation Bill!>

A: I really haven't decided what I'm going to do.  <I really thought I
   was going to win.>  I will be active.  I will continue to try to
   make a difference.  I have played a major role the last 16 years.
   I'm 45 years old.  <going on 7>  I hope the future is as bright as
   the past has been to me.  <Obviously didn't pay attention to anything
   Ross or Bill said about declining standards of living.>

Q: Does this idea of getting back into the business from which you came,
   the very business that raked you over the coals, appeal to you?

A: I grew up in a newspaper and communications family.  <I thought you
   said you were a typical middle-class kid.  I guess you lied.>  It's
   a great profession.  They have a lot of influence.  I have had a lot
   to say about where the media is and is going.  I would hope for a
   diversity of opinion, that we should not be monolithic.  <That's 
   why I support BOTH Rush Limbaugh AND Pat Buchanan!>  Freedom of
   speech and a free press--you would think that in this diversified
   country of ours, that we'd have rather diversified opinion.  <Gee,
   I could have sworn that Cal Thomas was a syndicated columnist.  I
   guess that awful Media Elite keep him from being heard.>  But it
   seems to be more homogeneous and concentrated at the top, sort of
   one viewpoint.  That's unfortunate for the country.  They're just
   getting one line, one theme, the herd mentatlity, that's very much
   of a concern to me.

Q: What's the future of conservatism in America?

A: Alive and well. <giggle>  This was not a repudiation of conservatism
   at all. <snicker>  As a matter of fact, Bill Clinton, for a Democrat,
   ran a very conservative campaign.  <Most of us called it centrist,
   Dan.  Hardly the same thing.>  He ran away from the traditional tax-
   and-spend liberal approach.  <We knew that but we kept accusing him
   of it anyway.  Our supporters, like Robert Davis, bought it hook,
   line, and sinker, but most Americans were too smart for that.>  He
   ran away from a liberal Democratic Congress and that's an indication
   of the conservative ideology that Ronald Reagan started in 1980.
   <And it ended in 1986 when the Republicans were voted out of the
   Senate again.>  Running as a liberal cannot win nationally.  We'll
   see what kind of a Democrat Bill Clinton will be.  He says one thing,
   but we'll see whether he lives up to it.

Q: If he starts giving in to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party,
   is he going to be in trouble?  <With whom, Cal?>

A: I think on some of these issues he may find a little more compatibility 
   with Republicans than with Democrats.  <That was not what he asked, Dan.>
   He campaigned as a conservative <no, he didn't>, or at least a different
   Democrat <that's correct>, and led everybody to believe that he is much
   more centrist, more pragmatic, much more in the middle than any of the 
   nominees before him.  <or you & George>  He rejected the liberal Democratic 
   Congress.  <Do you think Dan gets a cookie for every time he says "liberal 
   Democratic Congress?>  He certainly rejected the ideology and theology 
   <I thought it was the GOP that had the religious supporters> of Mondale 
   and Dukakis.  Jesse Jackson was persona non grata.  It's going to make 
   for a very interesting dynamic.  <It certainly will, Dan.  Why didn't 
   you answer the question?>

Q: Was there any major advice that you offered the campaign which was
   ignored and which, if accepted, might have made the campaign go better?

A: I don't know if it's useful for me to engage in "who shot John" scenarios.
   I just believe that Bill Clinton ran a better campaign.  That's just a
   statement of fact and I think most people agree with that.  <We also
   agree with the converse, which is that you and Bush ran a worse one.>

Q: But why?  Did they have better expertise or was your side too weak?

A: I don't know.  <Folks, I believe he's telling the truth, here.>  They
   certainly had a high energy level.  <Hey, maybe they were doing drugs!>
   There was a lot of enthusiasm.  <Yeah, for getting rid of YOU!>  They
   believed that they could win and they did.  They worked long hours.
   <Something Dan would never do.>  From the convention forward they
   didn't make many mistakes.  <Whose convention, yours or theirs?  I
   know the local Democrats got a WHOLE bunch of calls to volunteer
   after the Republican convention.>

Q: Are you going to stay in Washington or move back to Indiana?

A: I don't know.  <Stick with this answer, Dan.  You'll look less
   foolish.>  It depends on the kids.  <Dan's kids are allowed personal
   choice, just not anyone else's.>  For 16 years I've sort of done what
   I wanted to do and I've got to think of them now.  <This says it all.
   Dan "sort of" acted as vice president.  Explains a lot, huh?>

*************

I'd much rather see an interview by someone less sympathetic to Dan's
political viewpoint.  I doubt such a reporter would have let Dan slide
on so many important questions.

Stick around for Dan's upcoming address to the Republican National Conference!

Oh, and for more kicks, here are a few of Cal Thomas's ideas on why Bush
lost the election.

"The Reagan Revolution ended on Tuesday, not because it was overwhelmed by
a superior army of counter-revolutionaries, but because the fight had gone
out of its soldiers, and its heir, George Bush, did not truly believe in it.

...Conservative Republicans didn't lose on Tuesday.  Moderates did.  They
will blame the "far right" and their visibility at the Houston convention
for torpedoing GOP political hegonomy, ignoring that it was the conservative
presence and their "social issues" in the 1980s that made victory possible."
<What a curious theory.  I thought it was a disgust with high taxes.>
"It was the moderates' embarassment with those issues that made defeat
inevitable."  <Hmmm.  Most voters said it was the economy.  What do
they know, anyway?>

"...If the social issues are what dragged Bush down, why is it that his
approval ratings increased whenever he, and especially Vice President
Dan Quayle, focused on "family values"?  <I don't know, Cal.  Maybe
it's because those approval ratings were among "far right" Republicans?>

"...Republicans will not regain the White House and they have little hope
of new congressional victories if they abandon the moral issues that are
uniquely theirs."  <Uh, Cal, wake up.  The GOP GAINED 7 seats.>


What a curious world Cal lives in.  He's entitled to his opinion of how
the world should work, but it doesn't line up with how the world does
work.  Does Cal really believe that if the Republicans across the nation
wholly endorsed the current platform, that they would win more elections?
He must be smoking something awfully strong to deduce that.  Does he
care to explain why, in the most blatantly ideological race this year, it
was the LIBERAL who won (Boxer over Herschensohn for Senate, in CA)?  Has
he noticed that, for the most part, the electorate doesn't care a fig
about ideology and is looking for pragmatism and compentence?

As long as we have extremists on either side, we at a.f.d-q will have
plenty to laugh about.

Anyone consider starting alt.fan.robert-davis?  He's even more amusing.
Must be doing the same drugs Quayle did at his debate; the sort of
interrupting, giggling disease of mediocre frat boyhood, right down to
the sexist remarks that only he thinks are funny.  Must be something
about those conservatives, they sure enjoy showing up where they know
they aren't welcome (like Danoe in San Fran, and Herschensohn in
Berkeley).  Maybe they think they'll get extra martyr points.


-- 
Maddi Hausmann                madhaus@netcom.com
Humorist, Satirist, Tech Writer.  Take your pick.

Centigram Communications Corp, San Jose California  408/428-3553
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