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                                                                                COVER STORIES, Page 34

THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

Quayle vs. Gore


It may be the dullest job in Washington, but two young men with
similar backgrounds and sharply opposed politics are fighting
desperately to win it. Will their struggle affect the outcome?

By STANLEY W. CLOUD/WASHINGTON -- With reporting by Michael
Duffy, with Quayle, and Elizabeth Taylor, with Gore


    The parallels are striking. Both men are in their mid-40s,
telegenic, churchgoing Protestants and dedicated family men.
Both were elected to Congress in 1976 and later moved to the
Senate, where they served together on the Armed Services
Committee. They are married to independent, tough-minded women.
They come from prominent, wealthy families. But the main thing
that James Danforth Quayle, 45, and Albert Gore Jr., 44, have
in common this year is that they are fighting each other for
the least exciting job in national politics: the vice presidency
of the United States.

    Although conventional wisdom holds that voters base their
choice on the person at the top of the ticket, this year's
vice-presidential candidates are attracting plenty of attention.
Just three months ago, a number of Republicans urged President
Bush to dump Quayle because he was perceived as a serious drag
on the G.O.P. ticket. But Quayle hung on, gave a well-received
speech at the Houston convention, and has since waged an
energetic campaign. Gore's choice as the Clinton running mate
was widely applauded, and the young Southerners have developed
a remarkable campaign synergy that many feel has helped give the
Democratic ticket its buoyancy in the polls. One way or another,
Dan Quayle and Al Gore will play prominent roles in future
presidential dramas.

    Which is not to say that both men have not had more than
their share of political problems. Quayle has been the brunt of
jokes and criticism ever since Bush chose him, seemingly from
out of nowhere, as his running mate at the 1988 convention.
Quayle was too callow, some said. Too dumb, others suggested.
Some experts estimate that his presence on the ticket in 1988
cost Bush as many as 3 percentage points in the popular vote.
Since then, a series of flaps -- the great "potatoe" spelling
bee, the anatomically correct doll that Quayle brought back
from an official trip to Chile, the Murphy Brown "family
values" dispute and a host of misstatements and misspoken lines
-- only added to the popular view that Quayle was not ready for
prime time. "Gore has written a book," says the Democrat's
friend, outgoing Colorado Senator Tim Wirth, "and Quayle can't
spell."


    For his part, Gore was long criticized for being
stiff-necked and arrogant, a policy wonk without humility or a
sense of proportion. His brief and unsuccessful run for
President in 1988 was seen by some as an example of overweening
ambition. Gore's recent book, Earth in the Balance, an
environmentalist manifesto and call to arms that includes the
idea of banishing the internal-combustion engine "in, say, 25
years," has been blasted by Republicans as elitist nonsense.
Quayle told a group of produce farmers in Fresno, California,
last week that "with Clinton and Gore, you can say goodbye to
water, goodbye to food and goodbye to jobs." Gore has candidly
admitted that if he had known he would be running for Vice
President this year, he might have toned down his provocative
book a bit.

    The candidates' wives have sometimes added to the problems.
Marilyn Quayle, an attorney who once shared a law practice with
her husband, has a flinty edge that has on occasion made her
seem both tougher and smarter than the Vice President. Some
consider it ironic that a woman as independent-minded as
Marilyn Quayle would so outspokenly back the Republican Party's
emphasis on traditional family roles during the G.O.P.
convention last August.

    Tipper Gore has also generated controversy. Her determined
campaign against raunchy rock lyrics appeared to place her to
the right of her moderate-to-liberal husband and for a time
risked alienating traditional sources of Democratic political
and financial support in Hollywood during her husband's 1988
presidential bid. Today, however, she talks more about
homelessness, mental health and children.

    During the run-up to this week's vice-presidential debate,
Quayle suggested that he would be at a disadvantage because he
was a product of public schools while Gore had mainly attended
private schools. If the remark was intended to paint Quayle as
a man of the people and his rival as a privileged elitist, it
was disingenuous to say the least: both men sprang from
well-known, well-heeled and politically active families. On his
father's side, Quayle's family ran the Chicago Dowel Co., which
produced Lincoln Logs. The Vice President's maternal
grandfather, Eugene C. Pulliam, was a prosperous conservative
publisher of newspapers in Arizona and Indiana. Gore's father,
Al Gore Sr., is a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee whose
opposition to the war in Vietnam helped defeat him in 1970.
While growing up in Washington, Al Jr. lived in the Fairfax
Hotel and attended the exclusive St. Albans School before going
off to Harvard as an undergraduate.

    If Quayle's just-folks barbs at Gore's background seem
somewhat off the mark, so do his claims that he served his
country "in uniform" in contrast to the Democratic standard
bearer. The fact is that of all the three baby-boomer candidates
running this year, only Gore saw duty in Vietnam -- albeit as
a noncombatant Army reporter with the 20th Engineering Battalion
outside Saigon. Quayle avoided the draft and Vietnam by using
his family connections to help him gain admittance to the
Indiana National Guard -- a solution that Bill Clinton was
considering at about the same time in Arkansas before he found
other ways to stay out of the army and the war.

    Following their military service, Quayle and Gore followed
similar career paths that led them back to school and then to
Congress in 1976. In the House, Quayle was as well known for his
golf as for his legislative abilities, although he did push
through such measures as an amendment stipulating that American
hostages in Iran would not be required to pay federal income
taxes. In the Senate, his most notable achievement was a major
job-training bill in 1982. He began to develop a significant
conservative following by supporting such projects as the
balanced-budget amendment and defense-spending increases. He
occasionally positioned himself to the right of even the Reagan
Administration, particularly where arms-control treaties were
concerned.

    Gore's Congressional career was a good deal more
productive. In the House he conducted investigations of the
contact-lens industry, organ transplants and the Tennessee
Valley Authority. In the Senate he concentrated on environmental
legislation and arms control, immersing himself in the technical
details of START, Star Wars and the proposal in the early '80s
for a nuclear freeze. His main concern, he said, was finding a
balance between "national power and security on the one hand and
long-term human survival on the other." Recalls a congressional
friend and colleague, Representative Tom Downey of New York: "Al
worked harder than everyone and shone brighter than everyone."

    In the current campaign, the two men are playing very
different roles. Quayle, coming off his star turn at the
Republican Convention in Houston, is largely campaigning alone,
appearing in smaller towns and before smaller crowds than Bush,
always with an eye to keeping conservatives in the G.O.P. fold.
Gore, meanwhile, spends much of his time campaigning
side-by-side with Clinton, either on the Democrats' now fabled
bus tours or in joint Television interviews that underscore the
Democratic team's apparent compatibility.

    Quayle's campaign speeches stress his active role in the
Bush Administration. His case is stronger than his lightweight
reputation would suggest. As Bush's main contact with Congress,
he was crucial in getting Congress to sustain 35 of Bush's 36
vetoes. In foreign trade issues -- especially where Latin
America and the Far East are concerned -- Quayle has been
quietly effective in promoting U.S. commercial interests. He has
played a key role in helping revive NASA and the space program.

    But Quayle's greatest contribution has been his leadership
of the controversial President's Council on Competitiveness, a
kind of appellate court for businesses that feel overburdened by
federal regulations, especially environmental ones. The council
has served simultaneously to win business friends for the Bush
Administration and to help Quayle enhance his right-wing
credentials.

    In addition to bragging about the panel's achievements, the
Vice President and his staff privately rejoice in the fact that
this time out Quayle is not the main liability to the ticket. As
former Education Secretary Bill Bennett, a Quayle ally who is
now a fellow at the Hudson Institute, said last July: "When
George Bush was at 85% in the polls, was Dan Quayle doing
anything differently? No. George Bush is where he is politically
because of George Bush.''

    If Quayle is satisfied not to have hurt the President's
re-election chances, Gore appears to be giving Clinton a real
lift. Their tactic of campaigning in tandem allows the two men
to reinforce their "yuppies-for-change" image. Moreover, Gore's
presence helps compensate for certain Clinton weaknesses.
Clinton has no Washington experience; Gore does. Clinton has had
serious marital troubles; Gore has not. Clinton did not serve
in Vietnam; Gore did. Clinton has equivocated on the Persian
Gulf War; Gore supported it (although he has lately taken aim
at the Bush Administration's policy toward Iraq both before and
after the war).

    Clinton and Gore both insist the Vice President will have
an important policy role to play in a Democratic
Administration. Candidates always talk this way, of course, but
some of them actually deliver on the promise: Walter Mondale was
very active in the Carter Administration on domestic policy
issues and in congressional relations. Should Clinton win, Al
Gore would probably become deeply involved with issues like the
environment and arms control.

    The constitutional duties of Vice Presidents are to preside
over the Senate (where they vote only in case of ties) and to
sit around waiting to replace the President. That may not sound
like much of a job in its own right, but consider the
opportunities for career advancement: five of the past 10 Vice
Presidents have eventually moved up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,
either through succession or election in their own right, a
lesson of history that has not been lost on Dan Quayle or Al
Gore.