Who was the last Republican VP nominee announced during convention week?

a) Dick Cheney

b) Dan Quayle

c) Jack Kemp

d) George H.W. Bush

Answer: b) Bush, who had clinched the 1988 Republican presidential nomination after serving two terms as vice president under Ronald Reagan, announced his choice of Quayle to be his vice presidential running mate on Aug. 16 of that year. That was the second day of the four-day Republican convention held in New Orleans.

Though Quayle, then in his second term as a senator from Indiana, was regarded as a rising star by a number of Republican insiders, he was little known to most Americans and his selection was widely viewed as a surprise.

Some observers questioned whether the youthful-looking 41-year-old was experienced enough to be “a heartbeat from the presidency,” a feeling perhaps exacerbated by his hyper-enthusiastic demeanor during the ceremony at which Bush introduced him as his pick. Quayle then quickly became the focus of controversy that distracted from the usual convention hoopla, as press reports raised questions about whether he benefited from the influence of his wealthy family to avoid possibly serving in the Vietnam War when he entered the Indiana National Guard. The Bush-Quayle ticket nonetheless prevailed that November over the Democratic ticket of Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and Texan Sen. Lloyd Bentsen.

Quayle was renominated along with Bush in 1992, when the GOP incumbents lost to the Democratic tandem of Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton for president and Tennessee Sen. Al Gore for vice president.

The two most recent Republican VP nominees were announced before the beginning of the party’s national conventions.

Former New York Rep. Jack Kemp, a favorite of Republican advocates of “supply-side” economics, was announced as the pick of former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole two days before the Aug. 12 kickoff of the 1996 Republican convention in San Diego. Clinton won re-election by defeating Dole that November.

Republican George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, announced six days before the July 31 start of the 2000 convention in Philadelphia that Dick Cheney would be his running mate. This ended a selection process that began with Cheney, a former House member from Wyoming and secretary of Defense, tapped by Bush to vet other possible GOP vice presidential choices. Bush, who narrowly edged Democratic nominee Gore that November, kept Cheney on his ticket for the 2004 election in which he defeated Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

George H.W. Bush, the current president’s father, was announced as Reagan’s 1980 veep choice at the end of the second day of the July 14-17 convention in Detroit. The Reagan camp initially held discussions with former President Gerald R. Ford about whether he would accept the second spot, which he had held before moving up following the 1974 resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. But Ford, who narrowly lost the 1976 election to Democrat Jimmy Carter after surviving a tough challenge by Reagan for the Republican nomination, decided against the initiative. Reagan then turned to Bush — a former Texas congressman, CIA director, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and envoy to China — who had been his strongest and most persistent challenger for the 1980 nomination. Reagan, who unseated Carter that November, again ran with Bush in the 1984 election that resulted in his landslide victory over Democrat Walter F. Mondale, Carter’s vice president.