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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that proves there's more than one way to make history.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabeluesier, and in this episode, we're reflecting on a

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Speaker 1: simpler time in America when a politician's public image could

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Speaker 1: be tarnished by something as benign as spelling a word wrong.

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Speaker 1: The day was June fifteenth, nineteen ninety two. During a

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Speaker 1: campaign stop at a New Jersey elementary school, vice president

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Speaker 1: Dan Quayl misspelled the word potato. He was leading a

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Speaker 1: spelling bee for sixth grade students when he prompted twelve

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Speaker 1: year old William Figueroa to step up to the blackboard

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Speaker 1: and spell potato. The boy grabbed a stick of chalk

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Speaker 1: and confidently wrote out the correct spelling po Ta. Too satisfied,

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Speaker 1: he went to take his seat, only to be stopped

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Speaker 1: by quail who urged him to add an unnecessary E

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Speaker 1: to the end of the word. Figueroa was visibly confused,

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Speaker 1: but he did as instructed, and no one pointed out

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Speaker 1: the error until a press conference after the event. Quayle

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Speaker 1: blamed the gaff on the teacher who had prepared the

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Speaker 1: flash cards. Apparently, she had added an E to potato

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Speaker 1: by mistake, and the vice president then repeated that error

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Speaker 1: and forced a student to do the same. As you

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Speaker 1: might imagine, the media had a field day with the story,

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Speaker 1: turning Potato Gate into one of the most notorious moments

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Speaker 1: of Quayle's political career. In the summer of ninety two,

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Speaker 1: Dan Quayle was out on the campaign trail making the

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Speaker 1: case for the reelection of himself and then President George H. W. Bush.

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Speaker 1: His next stop on June fifteenth was the Munno Rivera

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Speaker 1: elementary school in Trenton, New Jersey. Quayle watched a drill

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Speaker 1: team performance that morning and then sat in on a

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Speaker 1: few classes before heading off to preside over a sixth

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Speaker 1: grade spelling bee. It was supposed to be an easy

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Speaker 1: photo op, with quail reading the words off some flashcards

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Speaker 1: and the kids going up to the board to spell

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Speaker 1: them one by one. According to his nineteen ninety four autobiography,

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Speaker 1: Standing Firm, Quayle's team reviewed the cards ahead of time

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Speaker 1: to make sure the words would all be familiar to him. However,

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Speaker 1: they failed to check the spelling of those words, and

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Speaker 1: that oversight proved to be the veeps Undoing in a

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Speaker 1: classroom packed with reporters and even the Mayor of Trenton,

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Speaker 1: Dan Quayle, dutifully read out the spelling words one at

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Speaker 1: a time. Eventually, it was William Figueroa's turn to spell potato,

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Speaker 1: and although he nailed it on his first try, the

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Speaker 1: Vice President directed him back to the board, saying, quote,

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Speaker 1: hold on, now add a little to the end. There,

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Speaker 1: Figueroa played along by tacking an e to the end

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Speaker 1: of the word. He then sat down, embarrassed and confused,

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Speaker 1: as all the adults in the room applauded his forced mistake.

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Speaker 1: Vice President Quail first learned of the misspelling and a

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Speaker 1: press conference held right after the event, and while he

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Speaker 1: was quick to point out that he had been reading

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Speaker 1: from a flash card provided by the school, the excuse

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Speaker 1: held little sway in the minds of the press and

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Speaker 1: the public. After all, even if the teacher did mess up,

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Speaker 1: so did Quail. He could have caught the error himself,

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Speaker 1: at least in theory, but he didn't, and since a

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Speaker 1: camera crew was on hand that day, the video of

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Speaker 1: his mistake was played over and over on TV for days.

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Speaker 1: On end part of the reason the incident drew so

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Speaker 1: much attention was that it reinforced what people already thought

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Speaker 1: of Dan Quayle, namely that he was inept and perhaps

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Speaker 1: not the brightest crayon in the box. One of the

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Speaker 1: VP's worst flubs was in a speech where he stressed

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Speaker 1: the importance of quote the bondage between a parent and

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Speaker 1: a child. But Quayle's biggest gaff pre Potato at least,

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Speaker 1: had occurred just one month before the Spelling Bee, when

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Speaker 1: he took a shot at a popular TV character named

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Speaker 1: Murphy Brown. In his now infamous speech about moral values,

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Speaker 1: Quayle called out the fictional character for a recent storyline

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Speaker 1: in which she had chosen to raise her baby out

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Speaker 1: of wedlock. It doesn't help matters, Quayle said, when Primetime

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Speaker 1: TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent,

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Speaker 1: highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by

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Speaker 1: bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice.

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Speaker 1: The fallout from the Murphy Brown speech hurt Quail's credibility

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Speaker 1: as a serious political figure, but it was nothing compared

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Speaker 1: to the damage done by the Spelling Bee. For several weeks,

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Speaker 1: the Potato blunder was the subject of every late night

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Speaker 1: monologue and Democratic sound bite. Headlines like Quail gets mashed

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Speaker 1: appeared in every newspaper, and even William Figueroa got in

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Speaker 1: on the act. In his local newspaper, The Trentonian, the

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Speaker 1: boy was quoted as saying the incident quote showed the

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Speaker 1: rumors about the Vice president are true, that he's an idiot.

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Speaker 1: To be fair, Figuaroa later claimed that quote was inaccurate,

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Speaker 1: though he didn't offer any further details. The boy's parents

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Speaker 1: had wanted him to keep quiet about the spelling bee

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Speaker 1: for fear of government reprisal, but once the offers for

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Speaker 1: product endorsements and TV appearances started rolling in, the family

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Speaker 1: quickly changed its tune. Figueroa made the rounds on all

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Speaker 1: the biggest talk shows, including Late Night with David Letterman.

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Speaker 1: He also earned four thousand dollars for endorsing a spelling

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Speaker 1: video game, and even led the Pledge of allegiance at

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Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety two Democratic National Convention in New York City.

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Speaker 1: One of the most meaningful outcomes of the Potato gaff

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Speaker 1: was that Figueroa was given a free family trip to

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Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, the birthplace of his grandparents. By the time

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Speaker 1: he arrived on the island, the US public had already

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Speaker 1: dubbed him the Potato Kid, but in Puerto Rico he

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Speaker 1: was hailed as El Rey de la Papa, or the

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Speaker 1: Potato King. The nickname came from a photo of Figueroa

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Speaker 1: that ran in Puerto Rican newspapers. It had been taken

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Speaker 1: in front of a New York baked potato vendor, called

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Speaker 1: you guessed it, the Potato King. William Figueroa clearly enjoyed

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Speaker 1: his time in the limelight, but the same can't be

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Speaker 1: said for Dan Quayle. He later reflected on the potato

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Speaker 1: incident in his memory, writing quote, it was a defining

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Speaker 1: moment of the worst imaginable kind. I can't overstate how

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Speaker 1: discouraging and exasperating the whole event was. Unfortunately for Quail,

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Speaker 1: things only got worse that November when he and Bush

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Speaker 1: Senior lost their bid for reelection to Bill Clinton and

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Speaker 1: Al Gore. And while the VP's spelling b slip up

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Speaker 1: could hardly be blamed for the pair's loss, it certainly

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Speaker 1: didn't help them any. According to Quail, though he got

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Speaker 1: the last laugh in nineteen ninety four, when he made

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Speaker 1: a cameo appearance in a commercial for Wavy Lay's potato chips.

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Speaker 1: The sixty second spot, which only aired once during the

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Speaker 1: Super Bowl halftime show, featured Quail happily munching on potato

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Speaker 1: chips alongside a young Elijah Wood. As you'd expect, the

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Speaker 1: media seized the opportunity to mock Quail all over again,

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Speaker 1: with the Chicago Tribune joking that quote, Dan Quayle can't

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Speaker 1: spell him, but he can sell them. This time, though,

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Speaker 1: the former VP took the ribbing in stride, he had

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Speaker 1: accepted the job purely for the fun of it and

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Speaker 1: even donated his earnings to charity. Then, once news of

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Speaker 1: his appearance broke, Quail made it clear that he had

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Speaker 1: made peace with his past mistakes. In a cathartic public statement,

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Speaker 1: he said, quote, potatoes have become a big part of

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Speaker 1: my life, but this time I'm enjoying them. Good for you, Dan,

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you

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Speaker 1: enjoyed today's episode, consider following us on Twitter, Facebook, and

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Speaker 1: Instagram at TDI HC Show and if you have any

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Speaker 1: comments or suggestions, you can always send them my way

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Speaker 1: by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks

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Speaker 1: to Chandler Mays and Ben Hackett for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back

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Speaker 1: here again tomorrow for another day in History class