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A little gray goes a long way Distinguished Hair -- So What?By Rick Horowitz So what do you think -- can he spell Y2K? There he was, back in his Hoosier hometown, back in the very same high school he once-upon-a-time attended, to kick off his campaign for the highest office in the entire land: J. Danforth Quayle in all his...glory, running for president of these United States. And there were his people, 6,000 loyal Quayludes packed into the gym, rocking and stomping and shouting "Q2K! Q2K!" By which they apparently meant "Quayle 2000! Quayle 2000!" Not a misspelling after all, it turns out. Still, leave it to the Quayle brigades to invent a campaign chant based on a computer hiccup that by this time next year will have proved to be either: 1. highly overrated; or 2. a worldwide disaster. Of course Dan Quayle is running for president -- and thank God for that! Kosovo's going badly. Lewinsky is old hat. The Tidal Basin beavers are history. We need something to lighten things up a bit, don't we? Something to keep the late-night dudes (and even some of us early risers) neck-deep in material for a while? "Murphy Brown is gone," he told the crowd, "and I'm still here fighting for the American family!" Which was a perfectly good applause line, and a real thigh-slapper -- except that coming from Dan Quayle, you did find yourself wondering whether he actually understood that Murphy Brown was -- how should we put this? -- fictional. "Uh, sir? This Murphy Brown crack in your speech here? Are you really sure you -- " "You bet I'm sure! Haven't heard much about her lately, though -- what's she up to?" Unfair? Admit it -- you were wondering the very same thing. And you're not alone. It's what even one of his supporters calls the "potato factor." The presidential race isn't a spelling bee, but you do want a certain heft in your candidates, yes? Leader of the Free World and all? "This Spud's for You" is not the kind of sign you want to be wrestling with on the campaign trail every day. On the other hand, he has very distinguished-looking hair. That's the one thing everybody says about Dan Quayle these days -- his hair looks very distinguished. You can't pick up an article about Dan Quayle without reading how distinguished his hair has become. "Gray at the temples," they all say. "Dan Quayle is now gray at the temples." That's nice. Some out-of-work politicians spend their "wilderness years" traveling the world, reading the Great Books, thinking the big thoughts. Dan Quayle got gray at the temples. It's not a bad thing. I mean, if you have to have temples in your presidential campaign, "gray" beats "Buddhist" every day of the week. ("Al Gore, call your office. Al Gore...") And let's give Quayle the benefit of the doubt for a change and smack down those nasty rumors that the gray he's got comes straight from the tint bottle. Let's assume for the moment that Dan Quayle's hue is true, that the baby-faced kid of yesteryear has a few more miles on him now. That makes him a heavy hitter how? "Appearing relaxed and in command of his topics," said one of the news accounts of his kickoff speech, "Quayle spoke from notes and varied from a draft of the speech given to reporters." Impressed? The guy was a congressman, a senator, a vice president. Now he's running for the White House -- and it's still news that he was "in command of his topics." That he could speak from notes. That he could depart from his prepared text. "Irma, come quick! The poodle's playing 'Chopsticks'!" Gray hair or no gray hair, he'll always be our Danny Boy. Posted
4/16/99. There's nothing gray about this site -- tell your
friends!
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