Dan Quayle Warns GOP About Dangers Of The Tea Party

Former Vice President Dan Quayle has a warning for the GOP -- "don't let the tea party go Perot."

In other words, Quayle is counseling against allowing the Tea Party to form the kind of third party that ended up costing President George H.W. Bush re-election in 1992.

In an Op-Ed to be published in Sunday's Washington Post, Quayle wrote that "[t]he emergence of official Tea Party candidates would be very welcome news in the Obama White House," because it would destroy what he sees as a current certainty that "Republicans will gain mightily" in November.

"All at once, a powerful and energetic counterweight to the Democratic establishment would become a splinter group, destroying the unified opposition it has helped to create," Quayle wrote.

In the Post piece, Quayle advised the GOP to reach out and embrace the Tea Party -- as the Republican Party did with the tax revolt movement in the late 1970's -- an effort that helped them get Ronald Reagan elected to the White House.