Talk about survivors: Dan Quayle has been rolling, over and over, on the racetrack of politics ever since he bounced off the media guardrail in the first lap of the 1988 Republican convention. His “approval” rating in some polls is lower than ever. Republican insiders and conservative columnists have begged him to quit-and begged George Bush to dump him. Yet here he is, on his way to Houston, alive on the GOP’s Die Hard ticket. How has he endured? From interviews with his top advisers and travels on the campaign trail, NEWSWEEK has pieced together the story of how Quayle, in his guileless way, survived coup plots and his own bumbling:

It wasn’t fair. He was reading from a cue card forwarded to him by his staff. And lots of people–including lots of reporters–have trouble with the O and E thing. But even conservative friends now label the period after Quayle’s spelling-bee stumble in a Trenton, N.J., elementary school on June 15 as “AP”: After Potatoe.

Did Quayle blame the advance man who handed him the card? No way. He just grinned and shrugged. White House aides have always marveled at Quayle’s placid immunity to embarrassment: you can never ignore him so much that he’ll get up and leave the room. He seems to hold no grudges. All that remains is an impenetrable sunniness–and an underestimated need to win, to be there.

But AP, Quayle’s enemies in the GOP high command, both those who consider him a dolt and those who fear him in 1996, saw a real chance to kill him. Master of the Universe James Baker and his sidekick, campaign chairman Robert Teeter, decided to try to squeeze him off the ticket by a subtle bit of gamesmanship. In July, Teeter commissioned a hush-hush poll, surveying other veep prospects. The aim was to gather ammunition to convince the Old Man that Quayle was dragging him under. The ploy fizzled. The poll did show that Quayle on the ticket could cost Bush three or four points-enough, in a close race, to doom the ticket. But most of the replacements wouldn’t help the ticket much, if at all. So Baker told Bush on their fishing trip in Wyoming: may as well keep Quayle.

Still, the pressure built on the outside. Some leading conservatives, including columnist William F. Buckley Jr., called for Quayle to leave-one of the most serious defections he faced. It was time for some heart-to-heart conversations with top advisers like savvy chief of staff William Kristol. Quayle polled his inner circle. Everyone already knew Marilyn’s view: spit in their eye. But Quayle, in the words of another close adviser, game-planned “all options.” Should he risk clearly offering to resign, hoping that Bush would say no? Should he stonewall? Would stepping down be better for his career, long term? Could he pacify the media, and how?

On July 22, Quayle went to his regular early meeting with the president. His strategy: modified limited hangout. “Obviously, if you want me to step down, just say so,” said Quayle, according to a close-in administration source. The assumption was that Bush was too loyal and decent-and too wary of the “flip-flop” charge-to say so. “It goes without saying, Dan, of course not,” Bush replied.

But that night Quayle complicated matters for himself. On “Larry King Live,” he did a sloppy job of slamming the door on the matter. He maundered on about how if he thought he was hurting the ticket, he’d leave. He forgot to say that he didn’t think he was hurting the ticket, and that he’d never leave on his own steam. Quayle also seemed to bungle an abortion question, suggesting that he’d support his own daughter’s right to choose. It took Marilyn to set the record straight the next day.

Early Friday Quayle convened a breakfast war council in his conference room in the Old Executive Office Building. The question: how to kill the speculation, especially since Bush himself hadn’t done much to help. The president’s public statements had been few, tepid and subject to the interpretation that he wouldn’t object if Quayle disappeared. They decided he must confront Bush one more time.

Alone, Quayle walked the short course across West Executive Avenue to the White House. He got one more assurance from Bush, a trifle heartier than the last. When Quayle returned to his office, he told his friends: “The door should now be considered closed.” A story in The Washington Post the next day reported the same thing.

It only remained for Quayle to find a serviceable line to feed the public. Quayle rehearsed his explanation as if he’d memorized a mnemonic device: OMH. The pressure he said repeatedly, had come only from “the opposition [the Democrats], the media and the hand-wringers [just about everyone else in the Republican Party].” Traveling to Birmingham and Talladega, he courted the kind of folks he’s likely to see from now through November: Southern and Midwestern white conservatives who should have long since been in the Republican column.

Those are the only people the White House would like him to see. Bush’s operatives want to keep Quayle safely on the country-fair circuit, flying under the Big Media radar. It is inevitable that Quayle will get more coverage than your ordinary vice presidential candidate. But under Baker, campaign bosses will send him to events that are so predictable, so safely white middle-class, that the chance of a confrontation is almost nil. Indeed, Baker and Co. don’t even want Quayle to show up at the Republican convention until he has to in order to accept the nomination. (Quayle will defy them by sitting in the Indiana delegation to hear Ronald Reagan’s speech on Monday night.)

Quayle may be schmoozing with farmers and starting stock-car races, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s biding his time. He knows he has one thing Bush lacks: a consistent conservative message. And he knows his own strengths. He has the drive, thick skin and perpetual enthusiasm he’ll need for the real race: the one for the presidency in 1996.

..CN.-NEWSWEEK POLL

Which one is the most important reason you would not vote for Bush? (Based on Clinton supporters)

53% His handling of the economy 20% His ability to understand the problems of people like you 7% His failure to keep his ’no new taxes’ pledge 6% His position on abortion 5% His record on other domestic problems 3% His health 1% His choice of Dan Quayle NEWSWEEK Poll, Aug. 13-14, 1992