Dan Quayle Urges Tea Party Not to "Go Perot"

Former Vice President Dan Quayle

/ AP

Former Vice President Dan Quayle is urging the Tea Party movement not to "go Perot" in a column that will appear in this Sunday's Washington Post.

Responding to speculation that the right-leaning but non-partisan movement will form a splinter party that runs its own candidates in the upcoming elections, Quayle calls on Tea Partiers to avoid such a strategy ahead of the midterms in November.

"There's a well-worn path of third-party movements in American history, and it leads straight to a dead end. A cause gathers strength, and its message speaks to millions; then, amid the excitement, a new political party is born, only to perform poorly on Election Day and disappear a cycle or two later," writes Quayle.

Quayle knows from personal experience that the result of such movements can be a fragmenting of the vote that ends up benefiting political foes.

"Many remember the Reform Party of the 1990s, which formed around the candidacy of Ross Perot," the former Vice President notes. "I sure do, because it eliminated any chance that President George H.W. Bush and I would prevail over Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992."

"Speaking on behalf of the Bush-Quayle campaign, to this day we firmly believe that Perot cost the Republican Party the White House," he adds.

Recent polls indicate that the Tea Party could lead to a similar situation if members run their own candidates. In a potential three-party race, 15 percent of respondents would vote for a Tea Party candidate, a recent Quinnipiac University poll finds. Thirty-six percent would vote for a Democrat, while only 25 percent would opt for a Republican.

According to Quayle, voting for a Tea Partier would actually benefit the "big-government agenda" that the movement actively opposes. Because 74 percent of self-identified Tea Partiers classify themselves as Republicans or independents-leaning-Republican, their votes would largely be siphoned from the GOP column.

For Quayle, the movement's positions on fiscal matters and national security align well with GOP values. He thus calls on Republican leaders to reach out "to an independent grass-roots movements whose energy and conviction the party badly needs."

Given the "growing discontent with the administration" and its "unjustifiable expansion of federal power," the emergence of the Tea Party has the ability to resurrect a Republican party that looked all but defeated in 2008 -- if the movement is harnessed correctly.

"If the tea party remains an independent political force in 2012, with no partisan ties, so much the better. All that Republicans need to do is speak to its issues, compete for its votes and heed its example of a confident and unapologetic challenge to a liberal president and Congress," writes Quayle.

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[U_S_Drug_Addict]

potatoe!!!

[Donna_Miller]

Nice try, Danny Boy, but Clinton would have won anyway:

"ASSOCIATED PRESS (11/4/92): Exit polls suggest Ross Perot hurt George Bush and Bill Clinton about equally.

The Voter Research and Surveys poll, a joint project of the four major television networks, found 38 percent of Perot voters would have voted for Clinton and 37 percent would have voted for Bush if Perot had not been on the ballot. Fifteen percent said they would not have voted, and 6 percent listed other candidates."

It's not surprising that you guys still trot this crap out 18 years later. After all, you STILL think that Saddam was Bin Laden's BFF and all the evidence in the world won't convince you otherwise.

You also need this to scare people away from voting third party rather than arguing for supporting the GOP on its merits. The two-party system is a protection racket, and it would be sued under RICO if it were in the private sector.

Democrats to Greens: "You better vote for us or the Republican boogeyman will get you!"

Republicans to Teabaggers: "You better vote for us or the Democratic boogeyman will get you!"

[thebob-bob]

Dan Quayle??? Wasn't he that hip young lad that Flip-master Daddy-Bush used to bring to Parties??? Didn't he play tambourine with the Voodoo Economics Band? That's right, Daddy mangled syntax and Danny mangled spelling. Mostly what I remember was the 'deer in the headlights' look anytime anyone asked him a serious question. Quayle?? Get serious!

[cgallaway]

I think you also misrepresent history here, ratpacksixgun. While Nazism and fascism usually have their roots in socialism or Statism, the political leaders end up using those ideologies just to get the populous on board to give them the power, then they take and keep it by any means necessary. Kind of like how the republican smear machine uses Democracy, Freedom, and Christianity to appease the masses and once they are in power, they do things that are decidedly against what they ran on. Funny you mention the White House and Congress bolstering Socialism and Statism...considering the Republicans for years have been using tax dollars to bolster corporations without regard for the American People. Or that they have for years been trying to get several sections of the Constitution revoked.

[pr_boxer]

Sorry Danny, this whole Tea Party thing is Ross Perot deja vu. Yes, it'll sink them again, not that the GOP had a chance anyway.

Oh btw Tea Partiers how many seats do you expect to win in Congress this year?.......oh you don't have any candidates yet,well ya better get goin man!

[ghendric]

The "Tea Party Thing" isn't a political party, its a movement. Its people sick and tired of the status quo taxing us all to death either through direct taxation or through inflation.

[pr_boxer]

I just want to know why the Tea Party wasn't invited to the Young Eagles "Bondage" show? This omission could cause a major rift in the movement.

[RatPackSixGun]

The only thing that could possibly be more comical to watch than Dan Quayle urging Tea Party not to splinter and run a third party candidate would be Joe Biden urging Green Party nutbags to stop running their third party candidate.

Either way, it's a PR trainwreck waiting to happen.

[RatPackSixGun]

Why not? The Dems have had their ridiculously misguided Green Party crowd pushing a ditto-head on the stage for decades. LOL.

[patocc123]

The Tea Party movement or teabaggers are screwed from the get go.

The democrat party will try to align them with the republicans in fear of getting support from the moderate democrats. They will label them racists and religous nuts or pretty much anything to associate them with the far right of the republican party. This is done to help maintain thier power.

The republican power knows that alot of the people in this movement used to blindly vote thier way. So they will try to lure them into thier ranks in hope to win more elections against the democrats. They will say they have the same values without ever acknowledge that thier hypocracy from not practing what they preach is what helped to start it.

In the end both parties are self-serving and all thier lemmings will help do what ever they can to help assimulate or demonize them.

This is why we will never have a 3rd party system. If you do not believe me look no further than the already posted comment on these boards.

[brianbwb2011]

So "Mr. Potatoe Head" speaks.

Yo Dummy, you are in a no-win.

Embrace the ASPD-afflicted Hutaree crowd, and lose even more seats, or let them form the new Nazi party, and pull your support base from under you.

Must suck to be a neo these days.

[RatPackSixGun]

You'd do yourself a huge favor to spend some time researching Nazism and the emergence of such political extremism through National Socialism. Despite your desire to pour hatred on "neos", or whatever derogatory moniker you wish to come up with, the roots of oppressive fascism are in National Socialism and Statism. Both of which are being bolstered today by both this current White House and its Democratic majority handmaiden in Congress.