On the Scene

TWO days after Dan Quayle’s debate performance gave the Bush campaign its biggest psychological boost in months, Quayle flew to Raleigh, North Carolina, to “drop in” on a local Republican “Debate Watch” party for the second presidential debate. The Raleigh Republicans rented a room in the North Raleigh Hilton big enough for three hundred and drew a crowd twice that size. As Clinton scowled petulantly and Bush looked at his watch, the crowd looked on quietly. They did cheer the Waffle House crack, and also when, for the first time I have seen, the President reminded people why we fought the Gulf War. Instead of asking voters to cheer for his military and diplomatic prowess in the abstract, he finally asked them to cheer for preventing Saddam Hussein from grabbing two-thirds of the world’s oil and acquiring nuclear weapons to boot. That is something to cheer about, and they did.

After the debate, Art Pope, the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, and Jim Gardner, the GOP candidate for governor, addressed the faithful. Both of them quickly learned how to get the crowd going: just say “Quayle.” “Did you see the Vice President the other night?” Roar. “Did you see him wipe the floor with old wooden Al?” Roar. Gardner called Quayle “our guy” and “the man who has excited all America, and all the Republican Party, and all the conservative Democrats in this state” and had to stop for some time as the crowd demonstrated what a wonderful orator he had suddenly become.

RV

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Richard Vigilante

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Presidential Election

TWO days after Dan Quayle’s debate performance gave the Bush campaign its biggest psychological boost in months, Quayle flew to Raleigh, North Carolina, to “drop in” on a local Republican “Debate Watch” party for the second presidential debate. The Raleigh Republicans rented a room in the North Raleigh Hilton big enough for three hundred and drew a crowd twice that size. As Clinton scowled petulantly and Bush looked at his watch, the crowd looked on quietly. They did cheer the Waffle House crack, and also when, for the first time I have seen, the President reminded people why we fought the Gulf War. Instead of asking voters to cheer for his military and diplomatic prowess in the abstract, he finally asked them to cheer for preventing Saddam Hussein from grabbing two-thirds of the world’s oil and acquiring nuclear weapons to boot. That is something to cheer about, and they did.

After the debate, Art Pope, the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, and Jim Gardner, the GOP candidate for governor, addressed the faithful. Both of them quickly learned how to get the crowd going: just say “Quayle.” “Did you see the Vice President the other night?” Roar. “Did you see him wipe the floor with old wooden Al?” Roar. Gardner called Quayle “our guy” and “the man who has excited all America, and all the Republican Party, and all the conservative Democrats in this state” and had to stop for some time as the crowd demonstrated what a wonderful orator he had suddenly become.