Although he served as vice president under George Bush, Republican Dan Quayle will face plenty of obstacles in his quest for the presidency, according to some Iowa State students and faculty.

Steffen Schmidt, professor of political science, said he does not think Quayle is a strong candidate for the Republican nomination because the other candidates are “probably much better than he is for different reasons.”

“George W. Bush is so far ahead [of Quayle] in terms of fund raising,” said Johnson, freshman in political science. “Elizabeth Dole is so far ahead in terms of she’s a women and everyone is so excited about how a woman might be elected president.”

Charlie Johnson, member of the College Republicans, said he does not think Quayle has a very good chance of becoming the Republican nominee.

“Right now, it doesn’t look real good for him,” he said. “He’s behind Dole and Bush, of course, and maybe some others.”

Michael Vander Molen, member of the College Republicans, said he thinks Quayle’s experience as vice president is one of his positive aspects.

“He’s got an actual political background he can support,” said Vander Molen, sophomore in chemical engineering. “Bush, he’s been governor for a few years. Elizabeth Dole doesn’t really have much of a political background.”

Judging from what he did as vice president, Quayle leans more toward the conservative side of his party, Vander Molen said.

“He’ll be really conservative on moral issues; he’ll support low taxes for working people,” he said.

However, Schmidt said he thinks Quayle does not differ greatly from the other Republicans on political topics.

“They’re all the same on the issues; they’re all trying to be sort of conservative but not too conservative,” he said. “I don’t think he has any positions on the issues that are different from anyone else’s positions.”

Quayle’s record shows him to be a capable candidate, Schmidt said.

“So far, I think he is viable because he was a vice president; he does know what it takes to do the job,” he said. “But he has an image problem he’s going to have to overcome.”

Johnson said he thought Quayle was treated unfairly by the media during his tenure as vice president.

“It seemed like every time he’d slip up on a word, it was in the news,” he said. “For political reasons, social reasons, whatever, they just singled him out.”

He said while Quayle did make a few mistakes, most notably when he misspelled “potato” as the special guest moderator at a high school spelling bee, they were not terrible ones.

“Politicians mess up all the time, and Dan Quayle’s biggest mess-ups were in public speaking and not in policy making or his background,” Johnson said.

Steffen said Quayle “stuck his foot in his mouth quite a bit” when he was vice president.

“He has this reputation for being not very smart, which I don’t think is true,” he said. “But he’s going to have a hard time overcoming that.”

Schmidt also said people have an unfair stereotype of Quayle.

“I think the public’s conception is really an uninformed perception of Quayle,” he said.