GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
What’s with liberal mags touting Dr. Rice for the Veep slot?
This space is usually devoted to pristine moral reasoning, but, hell, it’s an election year. Let’s get down and dirty. If McCain really wants to have it all-to refurbish his maverick image without having to flip-flop on the panderings that have tarnished it; to galvanize the attention of the press, the nation, and the world; to make a bold play for the center without seriously alienating “the base”-then he can avail himself of a highly interesting option: Condoleezza Rice.
To deal first with the obvious: Rice may be “only” the second woman and the second African-American to be Secretary of State, but she is indisputably the highest-ranking black female official ever to have served in any branch of the United States government. Her nomination to a constitutional executive office would cost McCain the votes of his party’s hardened racists and incorrigible misogynists. They are surely fewer in number, though, than the people who would like to participate in breaking the glass ceiling of race or gender but, given the choice, would rather do so in a more timid way, and/or without abandoning their party. And with Rice on the ticket the Republicans could attack Clinton or Obama with far less restraint.
By choosing Rice, McCain would shackle himself anew to Bush’s Iraq war. But it’s hard to see how those chains could get much tighter than he has already made them. Rice would fit nicely into McCain’s view of the war as worth fighting but, until Donald Rumsfeld’s exit from the Pentagon, fought clumsily. And it would be fairly easy to establish a story line that would cast Rice as having been less Bush’s enabler than a loyal subordinate who nevertheless pushed gently from within for a more reasonable, more diplomatic approach.
Rice is already fourth in line for the Presidency, and getting bumped up three places would be a shorter leap than any of the three Presidential candidates propose to make. It’s true that her record in office has been one of failure, from downgrading terrorism as a priority before 9/11 to ignoring the Israel-Palestine problem until (almost certainly) too late. But this does not seem to have done much damage to her popularity. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll taken when opposition to the Iraq war was approaching its height, she enjoyed a “favorable-unfavorable” rating of nearly two to one. The conservative rank and file likes her. Though she once described herself as “mildly pro-choice,” she is agile enough to complete the journey to mildly pro-life. And she is a preacher’s daughter.
Choosing Rice would be a trick. Her failures would be buried in an avalanche of positive publicity for a personal story as yet only vaguely known to the broad public. (One of the little girls who died in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing was her playmate? We didn’t know that!) But the trick would not be an entirely cynical one. Her ascension, though nowhere near as momentous a breakthrough as the election of Obama or Clinton, would be a breakthrough all the same. In this connection, a kind word for George W. Bush may be in order. By appointing first Colin Powell and then Rice to the most senior job in the Cabinet, a job of global scope, Bush changed the way millions of white Americans think about black public officials. This may turn out to the most positive legacy of his benighted Presidency.
The fly in the ointment, of course, has always been Dr. Rice’s unwillingness to serve beyond the State Department.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I don’t understand the appeal, and I never have. Granted we’ve been told repeatedly that conservatives like her from liberal media sources, but I just don’t understand it.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Ryan what don’t you understand?? Its an OPINION. Do you have one of your own?
March 10th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Condi Rice is pro-choice, would not motivate Conservatives, and does little to provide the GOP with an heir apparent. She brings little to the table electorally, has no experience on economic matters, and lacks executive experience.
In short, she has nothing McCain needs
March 10th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
3, So, she isn’t Mitt?
March 10th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
there are other suitable candidates, though Mitt is the best, yes.
March 10th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Ryan what don’t you understand?? Its an OPINION. Do you have one of your own?
Yes, he does, and he was stating it. Then, you attacked him for it. :\
March 10th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
“lacks executive experience.”
Huh? How many employees does the state department have? What is its budget? I don’t have the numbers off-hand, but I would venture to guess that the head of such an operation has executive experience roughly equal to, say, the governor of a mid-sized state.
That said, I don’t think Rice is a good choice for Veep (even if she had ever expressed any interest).
March 10th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
#2 - refer to #6 for the appropriate response.
I’ll take it further. I dislike the notion of Republicans putting someone at the front of the party who looks like she’s in over her head every time she’s put in front of a camera.
March 10th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Condoleeza Rice would be horrible. She can barely answer press questions!
March 10th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Condi Rice is almost certainly too classy and patrician to be a retail-level vote grabber, and the “mildly pro-choice” line probably makes her an untouchable for McCain. Fred could have got away with it, maybe.
I was interested to see Kasich, Cox, and Portman on Hillyer’s final short list over at the American Spectator. I disn’t realize Kasich had Pennsylvania and OH roots, which is almost too much to ask for. Plus, he was the budget committee chairman when the GOP managed to secure the first balanced budget in forever. He’s also solid on life issues.
I don’t know much about him beyond that and his wiki entry, and the few episodes of Heartland I saw (which seemed to degenerate into an upscale version of Springer by the end of its run). Any thoughts on the Congressman’s viability?
March 10th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
fredo,
As soon as I read that Spectator article, Kasich jumped out at me like a lightning bolt. I’m still a Pawlenty guy on the VP question, but Kasich is running about even with Mark Sanford for second. He was well known as an incredible fiscal conservative; one who’s specialty involved ending waste and pork, a platform that doves wonderfully with McCain’s priorities. He checks all of the right so-con boxes, but he’s never been remotely loud about these issues. He comes from a working class background, talks like a working class candidate, and occasionally fights for a working class oriented agenda. His Pennsylvania/Ohio origins make him a serious possibility on regional grounds. And he’s a very dynamic guy. He has only two flaws, as best as I can see. First, he appears to have somewhat of a temper; we might not want two hotheads on the ticket. Second, he has no executive experience. The first is a genuine problem, but the latter isn’t as serious as it looks; while he’s not an executive, he’s in enviable position of not being a sitting congresscriter (very valuable for McCain). Indeed, if I’m getting the biography right, he’s never served with George W. Bush, something that’s bound to allow McCain to more easily distance himself from the current administration.
March 11th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Incredible. Not withstanding the incredible image of pandering to the black and female community, the idea of Condi on a Mccain ticket staggers the rational mind. McCain needs distance from Bush. We will see enough images of his embrace with George and the hand wringing when he was endorsed. We don’t need Condi Rice and 4 more years of George Bush’s foreign policy.Everybody suggested for VP is a one ballooner anyway, so lightweight that McCain would need 6 months to introduce them to the voters while they were economically educating him. What a disaster.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Wake up and smell the coffe. There’s not any republican who can distance from Bush. Condy Rice is a good choice because she can be ready to rule at any second, she has executive experience, she has national security expierence (that’s millions of times more important to mos people than being mildly pro-choice), she’s smart, she is a woman and she is black. The last thing that republican need this year is a complete old white and incompetent ticket. It’s too bad that we are stuck with the worst candidate possible now we need a good vp.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:25 am
The problem with most movement people is that they believe that by picking Gumby (that would be Mitt to you people) or Pawlenty or Sanford, Movement Conservatives earnestly hope that McCain can “distance himself from the war”. Screw that. That’s defeatist, and that’s the kind of thinking that too many on this board have bought into. Picking some tabula-rasa nonentity like Sarah Palin (who is pregnanty, btw) won’t get you a dime from the liberal media. They will attack you anyway, so why not pick Rice.
McCain understands, at long last, that the news media is not his friend, so he will run on victory and a restoration of prosperity in this country. It’s his only shot. Rice has a good reputation among the rank and file. Movement Conservatives dislike her because she helped bring about the fall of their god, Donald Rumsfeld (who helped run the Army into the ground). And she can be President.
McCain is 71. People are going to wonder what happens if he keels over. Sorry folks, but nobody knows who the hell Tim Pawlenty is. They do know who Condi Rice is and they are comfortable with her. Mitt Romney has had more positions on the issues than can be found in the Talmud and JMC can’t stand the guy. Rice, btw, was largely responsible for the promotion of David Petraeus and Robert Gates within the Administration and the sacking of Rumsfeld. McCain knows this.
Whatever McCain does, he will be attacked on the war. McCain will have to run a counterintuitive campaign-Victory at All Hazards! If you’ve seen that McCain web commercial, you understand McCain’s whole grand strategy. He will seperate himself from Bush, but not from the war. Rice makes sense, because she’s the only Bushie who’s still popular.
The fact that the libs attack her so much should tell you something, btw.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:06 am
now ay is condi vp. that is political suicide. its like putting bush on the ticket. it would be insane.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:07 am
or even better, put rumsfeld on the ticket.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:08 am
section 9. what you say is true, but stupid. this is politics. you don’t want to start with an uphill battle. don’t pick someone with baggage that you have to deal with.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:09 am
11
I also like the fact that Kasich’s presence will underscore the fact that the Republican Revolution of 94 was responible for the fiscal sanity of the ’90’s, and that the Dems and Clinton can’t take full credit. This will be important if the economy continues to weaken, and Dems propose larger and larger “stimuli” (read: Keynsian deficit spending) to “cure” the downturn.
We have to win the narrative battle, and convince voters that Dem proposals will undo Reagan and return the country to Carter-era malaise, as opposed to the story they Dems will be spinning, which is that they will undo Bush and return to Clinton-era growth and surplus. Kasich’s presence on the ticket weakens their storyline, which would otherwise have the upper hand b/c of the voters’ ADD (and the fact that a significant % of voters were not politically aware in 1980).
Of course, that’s all on paper. I still haven’t seen enough of him in action, or on camera, to know if he’s up to the job. Would he be considered Quayle 2.0? Anyone who hasn’t been a Senator or Governor is liable to be considered a lightweight (and not even being a Senatory rescued Quayle, for that matter).
March 12th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Now that Mitt Romney had said to Sean Hannity his desire to “be honored to be McCain’s
running mate if asked” it can be that this is to his advantage , thinking about 2012, rather
than helping McCain who can win the presidency without his help. Again one should ponder how
the two of them can work together when Mccain has developed a personal dislike for the man.
He is an opportunist, to say the least.
March 26th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
[...] it was The Nation; then The New Yorker; and today, Huff Puff gets in the act: Breaking: Condi Rice Flirts With VP Possibility — [...]