GOP Ticket

George Skelton presented an interesting idea in his June 3 column when he suggested that Sen. Bob Dole select George Deukmejian, the 68-year-old former governor of California, to be his running mate. Without any inference of ageism, I would like to suggest instead that former Vice President Dan Quayle, who is under the age of 50, be Dole’s nominee. Quayle had his on-the-job training under the tutelage of former President George Bush, and then, too, this time around he would already know how to spell the word “potato.”

MARTHA ABELL

Seal Beach

* In his Column Right (June 6), James P. Pinkerton suggests the Republicans might do well to nominate Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn for vice president. But I think an inter-party fusion with a better chance would be Sam Nunn for president, with George Bush as his running mate. In fact, a Nunn-Bush ticket would be a “shoe-in.”

RICHARD STEHR

Los Angeles

* Pinkerton writes that “Nixon helped carry California” for Eisenhower in 1952. Nonsense. Eisenhower carried the state in 1952 by a greater margin than Nixon’s election to the Senate in 1950. Ike became the first Republican to carry California in two decades because so many of the boys he led in the Great Crusade moved to California after the war. He’d have won in a landslide even if Howdy Doody had been his running mate.

TONY QUINN

Sacramento