Reply #32: I think Quayle was originally going to play the role of GW Bush.

[Marr]

That is to say, he was going to be the resident idiot, with an administration run by old Reagan-era Republicans. After Bush Sr.'s term was up, they were going to repeat the Reagan dynamic (puppet, mascot president) with Dan Quayle, but it didn't work out and they ended up using W instead.

Unfortunately, W wasn't willing to act simply as a proxy for his father, and his enormous ego/Oedipus complex made him willing to substitute the neocon agenda for that of his father at the first opportunity.