Quayle tackles RFRA firestorm, Mideast chaos, 2016 race

Banner Graphic/Eric Bernsee Former vice president Dan Quayle (left) responds to a question from the audience Tuesday at Kresge Auditorium as a speaker in the Ubben Lecture Series at DePauw University. Quayle, addressed a myriad of issues from politics to economics and told stories of his career in politics both in and out of Washington, D.C. during his conversation with DePauw Professor Jeff McCall.

With political observations ranging from the firestorm of protest over the Religious Freedom law in Indianapolis to the Mideast threat that is Iran to the 2016 presidential election, former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle was candid in his Tuesday night return to his DePauw University alma mater.

With his visit as an Ubben Lecture Series guest coinciding with the uproar over Indian's passage of the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), Quayle tackled the question both leading off his late-afternoon press conference and again during a conversational give-and-take with DePauw Professor Jeff McCall.

"From what I know about it," Quayle told reporters, "my understanding is the Legislature and the governor are going to fix it. What 'fix it means, I don't know."

Banner Graphic/ Eric Bernsee 44th vice president and DePauw alumnus Dan Quayle spoke at Kresge Auditorium as part of the Ubben Lecture Series.

They have three choices, the 1969 DePauw graduate said of RFRA -- amend it, pass it with a new piece of legislation attached or repeal it.

"They know they have to fix it," he later told a Kresge Auditorium audience. "I don't think they ever saw this reaction coming. I don't think they anticipated the backlash the legislation was going to bring. But we are where we are and it's got to be fixed."

To do that, he said, Indiana needs to take a step back and have a "civilized discussion" about two fundamental American principles intertwined in the bill -- religious freedom and liberty and the promise of no discrimination in regard to race, creed, color of sexual orientation.

"I think in Indianapolis," Quayle said, "they missed how far the country has moved" on the gay-lesbian rights issue.

It hurts him personally, Quayle admits, hearing the outcry and the criticism nationally of Indiana as a state being characterized is intolerant.

"I've known Mike Pence for a long, long time," he said of the Republican Hoosier governor. "I think he's done a good job as governor. He'll work his way out of this. I just don't think he anticipated the backlash this was going to bring. If he had, I seriously doubt they would have passed this law."

But a real discussion is what's needed beyond the "fix," the former Hoosier congressman and senator suggested, not a situation where people like Al Sharpton are equating the Indiana legislation with the Jim Crow laws of the old South.

"Come on," Quayle said to that, "let's have a discussion, a real discourse."

Asked about the ever-volatile Mideast by Prof. McCall, Quayle called the situation "total chaos" and "a free for all."

"Iran," he said, "is the big question mark on where they're going to go."

The Iranian government and the Obama Administration "badly want" an agreement that would limit Iran's nuclear program while relaxing the economic sanctions the U.S. has imposed upon it, he said.

"Iran wants it," Quayle explained," to get rid of the sanctions against it. The Obama Administration wants it for his legacy."

Despite the Obama Administrative seeing such an agreement as "transformative," Quayle said the idea is purely "bad news" for countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

"I do not agree with the transformative point of view that Iran's going to be a partner with us in the Mideast," the former vice president under President George Herbert Walker Bush (1989-93) stressed.

During the question-and-answer session that concluded the 90-minute evening, Quayle was asked to handicap the 2016 presidential race.

Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee, he assured, calling her a "formidable candidate" who will likely play "the gender card" more readily this time as Quayle envisions "a strong desire to have the first woman president" emerging from the 2016 campaign.

On the Republican side, Quayle finds a mixed bag.

"I love Jeb Bush and think he would be a good president," he said, noting however that the Bush name seems to carry a negative connotation right now.

Thus, it will be Jeb's responsibility to change that by showing passion for the campaign and stressing reasonable ideas like his approach to immigration that Quayle says is right on.

The rest of the expected GOP field, including Mario Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and others, all "have their problems," Quayle said.

"It's going to be a very spirited primary," he predicted, "and hopefully we (Republicans) end up with the right candidate.

"The wrong candidate," he noted, "will have no chance against Hillary."