Dan Quayle

Quayle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on February 4, 1947, to Martha (née Pulliam) and James Cline Quayle. Quayle is the oldest of four children. He has two brothers, Christopher and Michael and a sister named Martha. Shortly after being born Quayle's family moved to Arizona. He has sometimes been incorrectly referred to as James Danforth Quayle III. In his memoir he points out that his birth name was simply James Danforth Quayle. The name Quayle originates from the Isle of Man, where his great-grandfather was born.

Quayle's family owned several wealthy businesses which include The Arizona Republic. His grandfather, Eugene C. Pulliam, who bought the two Gazettes as well as the Republic, ran all three newspapers until his death in 1975 at the age of 86. A strong period of growth came under Pulliam, who imprinted the newspaper with his conservative brand of politics and his drive for civic leadership. Pulliam's holding company, Central Newspapers, Inc., as led by Pulliam's widow and son, assumed operation of the Republic/Gazette family of papers upon the elder Pulliam's death. The Arizona Business Gazette is still published to this day. The other business was The Indianapolis Star. His family purchased the Star from Shaffer's estate on April 25, 1944, and adopted initiatives to increase the paper's circulation. In 1944, the Star had trailed the evening Indianapolis News but by 1948 had become Indiana's largest newspaper. In 1948, Pulliam purchased the News and combined the business, mechanical, advertising, and circulation operations of the two papers, with the News moving into the Star's building in 1950. The editorial and news operations remained separate. Eugene S. Pulliam took over as publisher upon the death of his father in 1975, a role he retained until his own death in 1999. Quayle's uncle, Eugene S. Pulliam was the publisher of the Indianapolis Star and the Indianapolis News from 1975 until his death.

After spending much of his youth in Arizona, Quayle returned to his native Indiana and graduated from Huntington North High School in Huntington in 1965. He then matriculated at DePauw University, where he received his B.A. degree in political science in 1969, was the captain of the university golf team and a member of the fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon (Psi Phi chapter).

After graduation, Quayle joined the Indiana National Guard and served from 1969 to 1975, reaching the rank of sergeant; his joining meant that he was not subject to the draft. In 1970, while serving in the Guard, Quayle enrolled at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. He was admitted under a program for students who could demonstrate "special factors" as his grades did not meet the regular admission standards. In 1974, Quayle earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree. At Indiana University, he met his future wife, Marilyn, who was taking night classes at the same law school at the time.

Quayle became an investigator for the Consumer Protection Division of the Office of the Indiana attorney general in July 1971. Later that year, he became an administrative assistant to Governor Edgar Whitcomb. From 1973 to 1974, he was the director of the Inheritance Tax Division of the Indiana Department of Revenue. After graduating from law school in 1974, Quayle worked as associate publisher of his family's newspaper, the Huntington Herald-Press.

Family

Dan Quayle met Marilyn Quayle in 1972 when the two were attending night classes at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law and assigned to work on a project together involving the revision of Indiana's death penalty laws. The couple married within weeks in November 1972. Together they had three children: Tucker, Corrine, and Benjamin Quayle. As of the 1990s, the Quayles reside in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

Their son Ben Quayle served one term in the United States House of Representatives from 2011 until 2013 representing Arizona's 3rd Congressional District until he lost re-nomination in the Republican primary to David Schweikert after redistricting.

Religion

Quayle was raised as a Presbyterian, although his connection to Robert B. Thieme Jr., a fundamentalist, became an issue of political attention during his career.

Throughout his life, Dan Quayle has never supported a Democratic nominee and has always supported and voted for Republicans, although he has only made few public endorsements. In 2000, he endorsed George W. Bush after dropping his own bid for the presidency. In December 2011, Quayle endorsed Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. During the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, Quayle initially endorsed Jeb Bush. After Bush failed to win the nomination, Quayle endorsed the eventual nominee Donald Trump. He again voted for Trump in 2020, citing his closeness with Vice President Mike Pence, and conservative policy. He was the only former vice president and the highest-ranking official to publicly vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election

Quayle has promoted traditional family structures and had famously criticized the sitcom Murphy Brown, for glorifying out-of-wedlock births, sparking a major national debate on single-parent families. He strongly opposes abortion, consistently voting against federal funding for the procedure and supporting constitutional amendments aimed at overturning Roe v. Wade. During his life, Quayle has advocated for school prayer and has favored stricter control over educational curriculum.

Quayle was and has been a firm believer in the supply-side philosophy. He has been in favor of lowering taxes to stimulate investment and job growth. During his tenure, Quayle had served as Chair of the Council of Competitiveness. When he was chair, he pushed to reduce the council and to reduce bureaucratic red tape and environmental regulations on businesses. He has generally opposed major expansions to federal safety nets. He has voted against and opposed funding childhood immunization, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) programs, and school lunch expansions.

He has maintained a highly somewhat hawkish stance by supporting a robust military, the expansion of defense budgets, and strategic defense initiatives during the Cold War. During his time as vice president, Quayle was chair of the National Space Council. During this time, he advocated for American space exploration and technological superiority.

Dan Quayle supports the values of the Republican party. He has supported the Republican presidencies and has established his New Right credentials early in his career. Quayle had supported supply-side economics and supported reduced government spending and tax reduction to lower the deficit and advocate for the establishment of enterprise zones to foster development. He has also maintained a consistently conservative stance on strengthening national security and a robust military posture. Quayle is known for championing his family values and opposing abortion. He has often focused on the breakdown of a family as the root cause of social issues. He famously engaged in debates over family structure, criticizing cultural trends.

Quayle was seen as a leader for the religious right, emphasizing moral issues in public life.

Indiana National Guard controversy

Since the 1988 United States elections, Quayle has been the subject of controversy regarding his service in the Indiana National Guard from 1969 to 1975. Many of Quayle's political opponents, media outlets, and Vietnam veterans have speculated that Quayle joined the Indiana National Guard as a means to avoid the draft or to avoid being deployed to Vietnam. In August 1988, Quayle denied the accusations. Quayle's draft controversy received renewed attention during the 1992 United States elections after Democratic nominee Bill Clinton was accused of similar draft dodging measures.

In September 1992, Quayle acknowledged that joining the Indiana National Guard cut his risks of being deployed to Vietnam, although he defended his decision. In a 1992 interview with NBC's Meet the Press, Quayle was pressed on whether his main motivation was to avoid being sent to fight in Vietnam. Quayle stated that he had preferences for joining the reserves, and that he never asked for preferential treatment. Quayle also noted that had his unit been called, he would have deployed, stating:Of course you had much less chance to go to Vietnam, but my unit could have been called up to go to Vietnam. And had it been called up, I would have gone.In a resurfaced 1989 interview with David Hoffman, filmmaker and Vietnam veteran Oliver Stone commented on Quayle and made contrasts between him and then-Nebraska governor Bob Kerrey, noting:I'm hopeful of people like Bob Kerrey, for example, [the] governor of Nebraska, would be a presidential candidate. He's about forty-two and lost a leg in Vietnam. [He's a] very bright man, compassionate, he's been there. I think he'd make a fine president. Against him would be a guy like Dan Quayle, who is also about the same age, early forties—a heartbeat away from the presidency—a man who has never really suffered pain—a man who went to the National Guard to avoid Vietnam, and yet he's one who always calls for military intervention in Central America, with other people's bodies. You have that hypocrisy at work.