It was a day when George Bush and Sen. Dan Quayle, his vice presidential choice, were to address the Republican National Convention and dominate a national television audience.
But Thursday night, the TV networks` newscasts were all but consumed by Quayle`s military record in the Indiana National Guard in 1969.
Quayle had become, in the words of CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl, ”the candidate who ate the convention.”
The principal figure on the nightly newscasts was Wendell Phillippi, retired head of the Indiana National Guard and former managing editor of the newspaper owned by Quayle`s grandfather, who described how he helped Quayle get into the guard.
Phillippi shared similar remarks with ”NBC Nightly News” and ABC`s
”World News Tonight.” ABC`s John Martin reported from Indianapolis that, according to unnamed Guardsmen, Quayle had ”missed many meetings” and that members of his unit ”were a wild bunch.”
NBC interviewed Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who acknowledged Quayle`s ”problem” with conservatives.
The network also strove to establish a mood, airing Vietnam combat footage and videotape from Woodstock, the massive 1969 rock festival.
CBS took the temperature of David Keene and Peter Lake, a pair of Republican strategists, and gave Frank Mankiewicz, George McGovern`s campaign manager, the chance to tell Bush to ”drop his running mate and drop him fast.”
