The Unusual Suspect

Quayle starts to look like Keyser Söze – an underestimated mastermind

Jack Hughes, our correspondent from on high, our Canadian sensation, our pop culture vulture, checks in with a horrifyingly compelling theory about why Donald Trump did not replace Indiana’s Mike Pence as his running mate.

President Donald Trump surprised me. I know at this point we shouldn’t be surprised by anything he does – but I was 100% sure he was going to choose a new running mate. It’s not that Vice President Mike Pence hasn’t been a loyal number two or that polls show him to be a drag on the ticket, I was just convinced Trump’s television reflexes would make him add a new star to the show for its second season.

Republicans and Democrats can agree on two things: Trump isn’t a conventional politician and he has no qualms about making personnel changes. If there was any president in modern times who would buck tradition, it’s Trump. The fact that it’s been over forty years since a president switched running mates, when Gerald Ford jettisoned Nelson Rockefeller, I thought would only make it more enticing.

I was not only 100% sure he would pick someone new I was 100% sure he’d opt for the oft-touted former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. After Joe Biden chose Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate I doubled down on my Haley prediction on the theory Trump couldn’t resist trying to steal Biden’s thunder by picking a woman (who coincidentally also has Indian ancestry).

In the end, though, I was 100% wrong. Trump didn’t try to get a ratings boost by throwing a “Haley Mary” pass and stuck with the status quo. That piqued my curiosity. Why is Pence still Trump’s ride or die? Why did Trump keep his running mate when the ticket is behind in the polls? Then I realized Nikki Haley and Nelson Rockefeller were red herrings – the missing puzzle piece was Dan Quayle.

The missing puzzle piece was Dan Quayle.

Mike Pence and Dan Quayle have been friends for over thirty years. They were both born in Indiana; both got their law degrees from Indiana University; both represented Indiana congressional districts in the House of Representatives before going on to win statewide offices; and both were chosen to be the Republican vice presidential nominee because of their standing with religious and social conservatives.

Back in 1992, George H. W. Bush was lagging in the polls and his advisors felt he could revitalize his campaign with a new running mate. It was widely speculated he might pick then-General Colin Powell. (George W. Bush told Jon Meacham he suggested Dick Cheney to his Dad.) Quayle outmaneuvered his critics by not falling on his sword and then telling the Washington Post he was running again.

From all of that I’ve read about President Trump, I’ve never gotten the sense that he is a particularly avid student of presidential history. I have my doubts that he’s spent a great deal of time contemplating whether Bush lost because he kept Quayle or, for that matter, if Ford lost because he dumped Rockefeller. He might not even know both Eisenhower and Nixon actively looked at switching running mates. 

Still, it strains credulity to think that at no point in the past four months – or past four weeks – Trump hasn’t seriously considered whether replacing Pence on the ticket could benefit him personally by improving his chances of being re-elected. For that reason, I have to think it’s just as likely Quayle connected with Pence to offer some advice – perhaps unsolicited – about how to secure his spot on the ticket.

Quayle describes himself as not only Pence’s friend but “more or less his mentor.” He also talks openly about helping Pence in his winning and losing congressional campaigns, and how, in 2012, he counseled Pence not to run for president and instead run for Governor of Indiana. Quayle saw the state house as Pence’s best route to the White House, and it’s a strategy that’s put Pence a mere heartbeat away.

If Pence had run for president as a congressman back in 2012, it seems unlikely that he would’ve bested Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination. Even if he had, it seems even less likely that he could’ve defeated Barack Obama. What’s certain is he wouldn’t have been Indiana’s governor heading into the 2016 election cycle – virtually guaranteeing he wouldn’t have become Trump’s running mate. 

Quayle recently told The Atlantic he thinks Pence will run for president in 2024, but denied they’d spoken about it. If Pence does find himself moving to the White House in four years’ time, would it be the culmination of a secret plan Quayle mapped out years ago? If so, Quayle starts to look like Keyser Söze from The Usual Suspects – an underestimated mastermind who was behind it all from the beginning.

Quayle starts to look like Keyser Söze – an underestimated mastermind who was behind it all from the beginning.

Imagine. A sitting vice president backs a lesser known, twice-defeated congressional candidate from his home state, then mentors him from the time he was a local radio talk show host and puts him on the path to be a probable frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination. Are Quayle’s political instincts and influence that strong? Is the greatest trick he ever pulled convincing the world they didn’t exist?

In the end, everything depended on Pence staying on the ticket. As Quayle told The Atlantic: “He’s been an effective and loyal vice president to Donald Trump, I would think he’d get a lot of credit for that. But it’s not automatic.” It’s not for nothing that Quayle is a rare establishment Republican who endorsed Trump in 2016 and 2020. His motive is clear: “I’ll be voting very much for the bottom of the ticket.”

And, like that, he’s gone.

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