The Unusual Suspect - Part II
OK, OK, Jack was way off base with his last theory. This one's gotta be right.
Political pop culture curator Jack Hughes, our very own Canadian sensation, is back with a mea culpa of sorts. That time last August when he uncovered a conspiracy by former Vice President Dan Quayle to elevate Mike Pence to the presidency? Yeah, he was way off base. Turns out, the answer was in front of his face the whole time.
Correction: The August 28, 2020 edition of The Experiment detailed a vast right-wing conspiracy, QuayleAnon, which made the fanciful claim former Vice President Dan Quayle was a ‘Keyser Söze’ figure who secretly masterminded Mike Pence’s rise from obscurity, mentored him until Pence became the Vice President in his own right, and positioned him to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
On closer review of the facts we didn’t go far enough. We regret the error.
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I’ll admit I felt a little like Chazz Palminteri at the very end of The Usual Suspects. Blinded by pride, believing I’d pieced together the perfect picture, I underestimated the man staring me in the face. It was only when I looked back with smug satisfaction at the storyboard behind me that I saw a puzzle piece which didn’t fit. Slowly at first, then with shocking suddenness, my tightly woven narrative started to unravel.
I thought I’d cleverly uncovered the fact that James Danforth Quayle was the hidden hand who had lifted Mike Pence up to the upper stratosphere of the American political ecosystem. I was distracted by the striking, albeit superficial, similarities in their lives and careers. They had so much in common, and Quayle had been so helpful, I neglected another similarity, perhaps the key one: Both of them are ambitious.
My original theory relied heavily on the fact that Quayle was almost alone among Bush-era establishment Republicans to have endorsed Donald Trump in 2016 and again in 2020. His hidden motive, I hypothesized, was to secretly support his friend, mentee, and fellow Hoosier Mike Pence as he jockeyed, in true Indianapolis 500 fashion, for pole position in 2024. To my mind, it was all absolutely seamless.
Then Quayle did something which surprised me. Within days of the election he was a very early high-profile Republican to urge President Trump to concede the election and, in his words, “move on.” To be sure, other Republicans had done so even sooner but most of them hadn’t endorsed Trump. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, as an example, didn’t even vote for Trump writing-in Ronald Reagan on his ballot.
Quayle’s early intervention didn’t square with the theory he’s been working flat out to maneuver Mike Pence into the White House. It surely annoyed or angered Trump, and, by extension, hurt Pence given their close association. To be clear, Quayle did the right thing – but considering how often he had defended the White House in the past it struck me as odd that he’d jump ship during its hour of greatest need.
While Pence had to stay silent, Quayle looked statesmanlike invoking how he and George H.W. Bush respected democracy in 1992. To that end, Quayle employed an odd choice of language. “Unfortunately, we (sic) were the last incumbent president to lose, and it’s not easy.” We were the last incumbent president? We were president? Was it a characteristic Quayle slip of the tongue or was it a slip of the mask?
Then it hit me: He isn’t positioning Pence for 2024; he’s positioning himself.
I know. I know. You think I’ve gone completely nuts. He’ll be 77 years old at the time of the election. Sure, he served as Vice President, and, before that, in the Senate, but he’s also run for president, unsuccessfully, twice before. The first time he had to bow out early, and the second time he was embarrassed in Iowa. He’s so gaffe-prone there’s no…What’s that you say? Yes, that also describes Joe Biden in 2020.
Having just turned 78 years old, Biden’s victory gives hope to former vice presidents of a certain age from 73-year-old Dan Quayle to 72-year-old Al Gore, even 79-year-old Dick Cheney. And he’s not an aberration. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is 80, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is 78, incoming Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is 74, and Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry soon turns 77.
Quayle may even be a more competitive candidate than Pence at this point. True, they were both born in Indiana; both got their law degrees from Indiana University; both represented Indiana congressional districts before winning statewide offices; and both were chosen as the Republican vice-presidential nominee because of their standing with religious and social conservatives – but they have differences.
First and foremost, if Donald Trump runs again in 2024 it would be extremely hard for Pence to run – and Pence will also carry the baggage of having led the COVID-19 response. Quayle has an advantage in that his adopted home is the now-swing State of Arizona and his son was Congressman from Arizona’s 3rd District which, at the time, included a key part of the Phoenix battleground Maricopa County.
If Quayle is half as shrewd as I now suspect, he would’ve looked around and seen that the field of high-profile establishment Republicans from Sun Belt swing states with both cabinet and congressional experience under the age of 75 isn’t exactly a crowded one. Moreover, he would have deduced that the list gets even shorter if you add in religious/social conservative credentials with deep midwestern roots.
In The Usual Suspects, Chazz Palminteri gets fooled into thinking Keyser Söze is someone else entirely when in fact he’s been in front of him the entire time.
Jack Hughes is a communications consultant based in Canada. His previous contributions to The Experiment include “Same of Thrones,” “Tippecanoe and Agnew Anew,” “Harris / Shuri 2020,” and “Firth and Firthiness,” among others.
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