Great mistakes in politics – Dan Quayle misspells potato

It’s quite reasonable to say that Dan Quayle hasn’t had the luckiest of careers as a politician. When he was elected as George Bush Sr’s running mate for the 1988 election, several anchors in the media raised questions whether he was a suitable candidate to be Vice-President of the United States. On his victory, Quayle seemed to go out his way to prove that the critics flamed upon him were right by making a series of widely mocked statements, including:

“I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change”

“I have made good judgements in the past. I have made good judgements in the future”

“I was known as the chief graverobber of my state”
“When you take the UNCF model that, what a waste it is to lose one’s mind, or not to have a mind is being very wasteful, how true that is”

“In 1988 the question is whether we’re going forward to tomorrow or whether we’re going to go past to the back”

Among the most memorable is when he misspelled the word ‘Potato’. This incident occurred on June 15th 1992 while he was visiting a school in Trenton as part of his official duties. He participated in a spelling bee where several students had to spell out words on a blackboard. When it was twelve year old William Figueroa’s turn he had to spell the relatively simple word ‘potato’ which he duly did. At this point Quayle stepped in to point out that, “You’re close, but you left a little something off. The e on the end”. William, acceded to the Vice-President of the United States did as he was told an added the e. The media immediately jumped on his mistake and very quickly it was all over the news.

Later in his defence Quayle rightly pointed out that he was working from the cards he’d been given by the school, where potato had been spelt with an e. As you might expect the press didn’t accept this as an excuse and the gaffe became a national joke (It also became a powerful political weapon in the 1992 election for the Democrats). Even several years later, Quayle devoted an entire chapter of his autobiography to the incident in an attempt to defend himself. When so many politicians have made moral or financial mistakes it seems slightly harsh to remember a man for his spelling errors but this seems to be the case here.

Here is a video of Dan Quayle during the spelling bee: