Works Discussed in this Essay: Dan Quayle, The American Family: Discovering the Values that Make Us Stay Strong (HarperCollins, 1996). Marilyn Tucker Quayle and Nancy Tucker Northcott, The Campaign (HarperCollins, 1996). W hen chosen by George Bush to run as the Republican vice presidential candidate in 1988, J. Danforth Quayle—as he was known at the time—was considered almost universally to be a buffoon. Journalists, pouncing on his privileged background, draft avoidance, and lack of intellectual heft, widely speculated that Bush had selected him in the hope that his handsome appearance would attract women to the ticket. Democrats, in response, tried to make him a top campaign issue. The rap against Quayle, though probably accurate, was unfair; he is not radically less intelligent than other national political figures. If instead of being vice president, he had been, say, a member of Oklahoma's congressional delegation, he might have been considered almost enlightened. Sensing this...