Had George Bush dumped Dan Quayle back in '92

[Fuzzy Bear]

Does it make any difference whatsoever? Yes, it would have highly depended on the replacement VP candidate, but everyone knew Quayle was a disaster for the GOP ticket, even back in '88.  Then again, and perhaps confirmed back in '88, people don't vote for VP.  They vote for President. 

Watching former speeches, debates, etc. by Quayle makes one's brain hurt to say the least.  You're just awaiting for the next gaffe to roll out of his mouth.

Opinions?

I couldn't disagree with you more.  Quayle was an asset to Bush; he was smart and saavy, and his "gaffe" was spelling potato with a silent e on the end.  His Murphy Brown comments drew criticism, but only from folks not likely to vote GOP anyway, and they cemented the support of social conservatives who viewed Bush 41 as a bit suspect.

Bush's problem was that his globalist policies represented a departure from Reagan, and the fruits of those policies, in the form of a recession resulting from jobs lost to foreign countries, came home to roost in the second half of his term.  Bush compounded that problem by projecting disinterest in domestic policy.  It never registered on him that it was the socially conservative factory worker who was a Nixon/Reagan Democrat that was getting laid off and seeing their jobs go to far off lands.  His policies cost him, and his party, the folks that gave the GOP their landslides.  To this day, it's not Reagan's policies that folks have problems with.  It's Bush 41 and Bush 43's policies that have cost them their jobs to the "global economy".

[Fuzzy Bear]

Does it make any difference whatsoever? Yes, it would have highly depended on the replacement VP candidate, but everyone knew Quayle was a disaster for the GOP ticket, even back in '88.  Then again, and perhaps confirmed back in '88, people don't vote for VP.  They vote for President. 

Watching former speeches, debates, etc. by Quayle makes one's brain hurt to say the least.  You're just awaiting for the next gaffe to roll out of his mouth.

Opinions?

I couldn't disagree with you more.  Quayle was an asset to Bush; he was smart and saavy, and his "gaffe" was spelling potato with a silent e on the end.  His Murphy Brown comments drew criticism, but only from folks not likely to vote GOP anyway, and they cemented the support of social conservatives who viewed Bush 41 as a bit suspect.

Bush's problem was that his globalist policies represented a departure from Reagan, and the fruits of those policies, in the form of a recession resulting from jobs lost to foreign countries, came home to roost in the second half of his term.  Bush compounded that problem by projecting disinterest in domestic policy.  It never registered on him that it was the socially conservative factory worker who was a Nixon/Reagan Democrat that was getting laid off and seeing their jobs go to far off lands.  His policies cost him, and his party, the folks that gave the GOP their landslides.  To this day, it's not Reagan's policies that folks have problems with.  It's Bush 41 and Bush 43's policies that have cost them their jobs to the "global economy".

I don't agree with you, but I do think Bush 41 was the last of his kind in the sense that he was very much a mid-20th century style internationalist Republican who believed in multilateralism and the idea that the United States could be a leader in the global community but still had to be a part of the global community. His handling of the Gulf War was emblematic of that belief - simply going into Iraq by ourselves without international support would have been inconceivable to someone of his school of thought. And his support for things like NAFTA, an international approach to environmental protection and the UN-inspired Americans with Disabilities Act are all things that get the "drooler" faction of the Republican Party riled up with talk of the Trilateral Commission and the Rothschilds and the NWO and all that.

I'm not one of those folks who get riled up about the Bilderbergers, etc.  But Bush's internationalist policies sped up the flow of manufacturing jobs out of the US.  And he was rightly blamed for that, IMO.  All the internationalist platitudes sound great to elites because they can personally afford manufacturing jobs being eliminated and exported.  Working class towns and working class people are a different matter.

[Fuzzy Bear]

That race was officially over when the young girl asked the President during the Town Hall debate, "how has the national debt affected you personally?"

Bush had no idea how to answer and again, proved he was out of touch and elitist. Clinton had the right answer (albeit it, he probably wasn't honest).  That was the official end of Campaign '92.

Quayle actually held up well in the '92 VP debate that year, far better than he did against Bentsen back in '88.

He had a priceless retort to Gore during one of Gore's faux outraged moments when he said:  "Lighten up, Al.  Inhale."

[Fuzzy Bear]

I am pretty sure it would not have made a difference and in fact the scale of the defeat could have been even worse.  I recall that Quayle actually did quite well against Gore in the 1992 Veep Prez debates.  And changing the Vice President is admitting things are going badly and merely pushed undecided away from the GOP ticket.

Absolutely true.  A VP allowing his relationship with the President to deteriorate exposes a marriage of convenience that could never have worked.  Voters just don't like that, pure and simple, and there are good reasons for voters not liking it, not the least of which is that it's a reflection on the President's judgment. 

As an aside, I think that Ford should never have dumped Rockefeller.  He probably should have picked Reagan to begin with, but having picked Rockefeller, he should have stuck with him.  He may well have carried New York, which carried for Carter by only 3 points.