27 August 2010

What next, Chelsea as Senator?

Rico says that, in the 'thought he'd heard everything' category, this:
Those who want to stop Ben Quayle from going to Congress had better start studying his old lacrosse game films. Mr. Quayle, who managed a slim win in a crowded field for the Republican nomination for Congress on Tuesday in a district that encompasses northern Phoenix and the upscale Scottsdale and Paradise Valley suburbs, played high school lacrosse while his father, Dan Quayle, was vice president. He went on to play for Duke. Old coaches and teammates said he was often considered a lightweight because of his lean, unassuming physique. But as rivals rolled their eyes, Mr. Quayle would scoot past them. “I was definitely not a star player but I worked hard,” Mr. Quayle said in an interview.
That is what happened this week when Mr. Quayle, 33, a political neophyte, defeated nine Republican challengers, some of them veteran politicians, to win the nomination for the Third Congressional District in Arizona. Some of those rival camps were still staring in disbelief at the results on Wednesday.
Democrats, meanwhile, said they eagerly anticipated a crack at another Quayle, hinting that they might pour money into the Republican-leaning race to neutralize the son of the gaffe-prone former vice president. Mr. Quayle, who seemed to be surprised by the victory himself, acknowledged that he had his work cut out for him, having won just 22 percent of Republican voters on Tuesday. “For those who voted for someone else, I know I have to earn your trust,” he said with supporters and relatives, including his wife and father, gathered around.
Those who have known Mr. Quayle recalled him as well-grounded, for someone who grew up with government bodyguards. “He was a good player, a good kid, worked hard,” said Peter Bahor, Mr. Quayle’s lacrosse coach at Gonzaga College High School, a Roman Catholic prep school in Washington. As a boy, he was a Congressional page, and when his mother, Marilyn, made disaster preparedness her cause, Ben and his older brother, Tucker, participated in a mock disaster in California, acting wounded while soldiers scampered around to respond.
Mr. Quayle performed some charitable work as a child, once volunteering at a Washington homeless shelter with President George Bush’s grandson George, a son of Jeb and Columba Bush. To avoid creating a stir, the boys used their mothers’ maiden names at the shelter, becoming George Garnica and Ben Tucker.
It is another pseudonym, however, that may have a greater effect on Mr. Quayle’s chances of following his father into politics. He was hammered in the primary when the owner of a local risqué Web site said that Mr. Quayle had been an occasional contributor, commenting on the physical attributes of women and using the name Brock Landers, a porn star character in the movie Boogie Nights.
Mr. Quayle’s Democratic challenger, a lawyer and businessman named Jon Hulburd, was quick to pounce on Wednesday, issuing a statement saying “This election is now between Jon Hulburd and Brock Landers.”
Mr. Quayle brushed off the attacks. “You build thick skin being a Quayle,” he said, noting that his father had been giving him this advice: “Don’t let the sideshow get you down.”
In this Republican-leaning district, the race is considered Mr. Quayle’s to lose. “It will take a near-miracle for a Democratic candidate to win in that district in this environment,” said Kurt Davis, a Republican strategist in Phoenix.
Dan Quayle came to his son’s aid when the campaign was floundering, criticizing the attacks on his son in an 11th-hour email to supporters. He offered no comment on Wednesday, but simply stuck his thumb in the air when asked what he thought of his son’s win.
The younger Mr. Quayle used his father’s connections well, raising more than $1.3 million.
Mr. Hulburd said that he had raised more than Mr. Quayle within the state of Arizona and that he intended to take his rival seriously. “I’m a Democrat running in the state of Arizona in 2010,” he said. “I consider myself nothing if not the underdog.”
Mr. Quayle, who bears a striking resemblance to his mother, has shown some of his father’s propensity for verbal gymnastics, denying, for instance, any connection to that racy web site, but later acknowledging that he may have written a few postings. An online quotation attributed to him, which will no doubt find its way into Democratic campaign advertisements: My moral compass is so broken I can barely find the parking lot.
And his campaign sent out a mailer of Mr. Quayle with two young girls, leaving the impression they were his children. But the newly married Mr. Quayle has no children and opponents accused him of “renting” a family for the campaign. (The girls were his nieces.) The episode won him a jab from Jay Leno, a milestone for a little-known Congressional candidate.
Mr. Quayle runs an investment firm with his brother and has made restoring the economy his prime campaign theme. (In one attention-getting ad, he called President Obama the “worst president in history” for his economic stewardship and said he planned to go to Washington “to knock the hell out of the place.”)
Even before Mr. Quayle won, one Arizona business he has already helped is that of thedirty.com, the successor to the Web site for which he once wrote, which says traffic is higher than ever.
Rico says Brock Landers isn't easy to find, but apparently it was one of those 'movie in a movie' things:

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