Better than JD Vance?
Thoughts?
shareI'm just barely old enough to remember the 1988 election and I remember him as kind of an out-of-nowhere pick for the Republican Party. He didn't have any name value and the media jumped on him immediately to characterize him as an inarticulate buffoon.
Vance is different because he has name recognition mainly from his book and movie Hillbilly Elegy and a lot of working class support. There are a few similarities in that they are relatively young (39 for Vance and Quayle was 41 in the 88 election) and both from rust-belt swing states. As for who is "better" or "worse", I think it's an evaluation of their youth and inexperience and where they go from their starting point. Quayle ended up being ineffectual for the rest of his career but Vance is being positioned as the inheritor of the Republican populist movement. Younger candidates are not as set in their ways but may possibly be a little less beholding to as many donors since they haven't accrued as many. Don't get me wrong, I believe EVERY politician is beholding to donors though with somewhat of an exception of people who get elected based on their fame in the business/military worlds.
I think you're correct about your views on Quayle vs. Vance. Politics today are different than they were in the late 80s, and some things that are normal today would have been unusual to voters back then. Quayle was skewered as being a "boy" by the media, so much so that I think they had a child actor portray him in SNL skits of the time. I know that JFK was young when he became president in the 60s, but once we had a string of modern presidents - Clinton, Obama - who were also in their 40s, I think it helped change expectations among voters.
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