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Dan Quayle Center and Museum
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1 review for Dan Quayle Center and Museum
I'm amazed this museum isn't a magnet for tourists from liberal Chicago or Columbus with the amount of irony that its name raises. I guess at about 3.5 hours drive from each, it's not quite close enough in Indiana to really even be on the road trip radar.
Recently the name Dan Quayle has been floating around again in polite conversation (due to a certain other V.P. candidate that bears a striking resemblence to many of his qualities) for the first time since, seemingly, 1992. So perhaps it's time for everyone to really examine the life and times of Dan Quayle. And this museum devotes its entire second floor to doing just that.
There is not a single iota of jest in the whole thing, though. This museum is the official Dan Quayle Vice-Presidential Library (oddly enough, it's the only VP library in the country and it's devoted to the man who couldn't spell potato). The curators have lovingly collected artifacts from his early days to his time in the White House.
The highlight of the museum, however, is a life-sized cutout of Dan Quayle to take a photo with. I can't fault Huntington, Indiana from celebrating a local boy made good but I found this particular display a bit creepy as it almost stares at you as you walk around the room. But Dan Quayle is such a friendly looking guy that it's not quite as creepy as if it were, say, Dick Cheney.
The first floor of the museum is devoted to the Vice-Presidency in general with the theme "second to one." An informative video loops the history of the office. There's a wall of Vice-Presidents (with the shocking statistics of how many of them became President either through succession or being elected on their own) and an collection of memorabilia from most of the former Vice-Presidents. The museum even, in the interest of equal time, devotes a huge amount of space to Al Gore.
When I went to the museum back in April it was empty except for a local school group. Maybe now it's doing a more robust business. And perhaps Dan Quayle will make a comeback in 2012 and really put it over the top. The world might just be "ready" again.
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