Citizen Smash says "a little bird tells him" (I'll bet I know which bird that is) that Vice President Cheney is considering retirement and that names such as "Rudy Giuliani" are being floated about as potential replacements.
I frankly think the country would be better off in several ways if Bush were to ask Condoleeza Rice to do be his running-mate; the racial divide in our politics is just too damned destructive, and that's a gesture a Republican could make that might have a real impact on things. But that's not what the rumors are saying.
Call me a skeptic, though. A Bush family trait is loyalty, often to a fault, and it seems extremely unlikely Bush would ask this of Cheney. So it would be Cheney himself deciding this, mostly on his own. I wouldn't even be taking it seriously if it weren't Scott suggesting it.
Bush-Rice? Don't see it.
Leiberman-Rice? That has possibilities.:)
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Condi doesn't want it badly enough, at least right now, to go through the campaigning. I don't think she's politician enough to just be playing coy, either.
Naw, I'd like to see Bush - Watts, as in J.C. Watts
Do you really think Dubya would win with Rice as his running mate?
Dubya's support is broad but it is paper thin -- relegated almost completely to national security issues.
He's not a shoo-in for re-election, unless Dean gets the nomination, which is looking doubtful at the moment.
Ever since 9/11, I have thought how great it would be for Cheney to retire now that Bush has his own gravitas (sorry to revive that overused word from the 2000 election) and fill the VP slot with Guiliani, thereby positioning Rudy for the White House in 2008. Not only would Guiliani help in New York, but he would also put a great roadblock in Billary's plan to retake the White House in 2008.
What about Colin Powell? He's definitely more charismatic, though I think Rice is considerably smarter.
Being anti-affirmative-action to the point of nearly foaming at the mouth on occasion, I find myself saying this anyway; A minority in the whitehouse would be a very good thing. It would put another very big nail in the coffin we're brying racism in in this country by giving minorities an opportunity to let go of their self-pity and get on with building their lives.
Of course, I wouldn't be suggesting this if I didn't think Powell could do the job, and be a viable candidate in 2008. I don't buy the arguement that Bush and Colin don't see eye to eye either. Neither has shown themselves to be a fanatic about any issue on which there are two sides.
I don't think Powell would be viable. He has lost a lot of popularity within the GOP faithful for being too diplomatic at a time the leadership sees things and acts in much more black and white terms. At the same time, he may have alienated those more to the left by joining the Bush team in the first place.
I don't see it as being that much of an issue on the right, or near the center. It may be somewhat of a problem amongst the more rabid right, but I don't believe that represents a sufficiently large sample of the voting public. As for the left, I agree, but then, that's the side I believe him to be viable against.
I won't say that nothing will sway any individual on the lunatic left (or the lunatic right either, for that matter). However, I suspect the vast majority of them have real functioning brains but are just too busy using them to process conspiracy theories and evaluate spurious signals from their lie detectors. I assume that some will come around with time. I don't expect those converts to represent a majority, but it won't take a very big percentage of what I already believe to be a minority of voters to seal the Democrats' fate.
In the end it's the moderates that will carry the election. Of course they'll be labeled ultra conservative by anyone sufficiently more liberal, but that's always been the case.
Rice would be perfect. Everything right this administration has done has her imprint, and everything wrong falls outside her area of influence. She's smart, articulate, and inspires confidence (at least in my eyes.)
Besides, the thought of a Rice versus Hillary! scenario in '08 is too tasty to resist.
I'm for Bush-Rice. The woman's brainy, sexy, and has no 'baggage', so this would be an excellent chance to get executive credentials without building up baggage.
Speaking of Bush v. Kerry/Edwards.
How much are these two regretting their vote against funding the occupation? They moved left to fight Dean when it now appears they didn't need to. Doh!
Wrote a sf story that had my hero meeting President Rice about the year 2010, so put me down as "Bush-Rice 2004".
Tadeusz
Interesting rumor.
I've been a contrarian of sorts for saying that I think Cheney is over-rated. Most of the decisions that he was identifiably involved in were pretty bad ones.
Add to that the possibility that he'll become a campaign issue as well as the fact that the GOP needs to look for an heir in 2008. It makes sense to consider phasing Cheney out for the likes of Giuliani.
Besides, POTUS can always officially make Cheney his Chief of Staff, which is how he functions now. Any COS has always been the second most powerful person in the White House. Much more powerful than the VPOTUS.
If Giuliani (pro-choice) joins the ticket, what would the base do? What would it do for POTUS' approval rating with his core followers? It's already at 99% or so; can't go anywhere but down. But would it?
Oh and BTW -- I think Rice would be a poor choice, compared to Giuliani. I used to like Condi but I think her conduct and job performance over the last two years have been abysmal. Her head should have rolled long ago.
It depends on who you want to run up the flag pole in '08. Rice v. Hillary isn't too bad, providing that Rice had better domestic credentials (e.g. being VP). Elsewise, Guliani is a bit more complex. He could take on Hillary in NY in '06, and earn his bones there. Or, alternatively, he could wait till '07 to challenge her.
This is all assuming that Hillary is the 500-lb gorilla of '08.
Rice would be an exquisite candidate if Cheney retires except that... to be viable for the 2008 election she needs a longer track record than she has of showing an aggressive leadership suitable for the Presidency. Perhaps in her Stanford days she exercised such command, but nothing I've seen in the last 10 years worth of media make her appear more than a very smart and cultivated policy wonk.
Or has the press just draped a veil of silence over her, by non-reporting?
Ok, Ara, you've piqued my interest. Please list specific examples, links if possible, of "abysmal" job performance or conduct by Condi Rice. The fact that she has helped make President Bush look good is only a flaw to the hateBush crowd.
I am also an admirer of Ms. Rice, but I think she lacks sufficient executive experience for the top job.
If the rumor turns out to be true, expect Giuliani to be next in line to run as Bush's successor, possibly with Rice on the ticket.
I expect Powell to retire from government work soon, and go back on the public speaking / policy wonk circuit. He may have entertained fantasies of running for public office at one time, but he is now serving in his dream job, and there's not much left for him to do in gov't.
Incidentally, while I expect that Bush will likely be re-elected this year, the odds are less than even that a Republican will win again in 2008, and almost infinitesimal that they could carry it through the 2012 election. Something bad is bound to happen between now and then, and the people will call for a change.
The longest any one party has held office in recent history was the Democrats under FDR and HST from 1933 to 1949 -- and those were VERY tumultuous times. It's unlikely to happen again anytime soon.
Another advantage for Rice would be her obvious intelligence and academic background. Having Dr Rice on the ticket would help to mock the Democrats' pretensions of intellectual superiority.
Smash --
1933-1953.
The Dems were in the Oval from '33-'53.
John:
Please list specific examples, links if possible, of "abysmal" job performance or conduct by Condi Rice.
Don't have time for the links right now, so most of this is from memory. Sorry:
Several things come to mind -- her contention that "no one would have conceived that al-Qaeda would fly planes into skyscrapers." She's being disturbingly disingenuous, at best. The signs were there.
Her contention that she didn't read to the end of that report about uranium and Niger, etc. What else is the National Security Adviser supposed to do but vet these things? She sounded like Sargent Schultz, for crying out loud.
Her trial balloon saying that she won't testify under oath in front of the 9/11 Commission. Get real, Condi.
I liked her a lot. But now she seems like she's been in over her head for quite a while.
The bottom line on this one is, "is Bush trying to shape the next republican president?" I doubt it, and I doubt that he is looking to replace Cheney with anyone. I would be really shocked if he made the swap, but if he did, Rice, Ridge, or Tommy Thompson are his best options. If he stays with Cheney, the 2008 election is going to be wiiiiide open, but I'm favoring Edwards to take it in 2008.
Giuliani seems the best candidate on the face of it.
I've heard previously that Rice is exploring running for governor somewhere -- at the time it was California, but that was before Arnie. The point being, she hasn't been elected anywhere and needs to add some heft to her credentials (governor or senator somewhere).
I don't think the GOP is going to throw away the VP on Cheney for the 2nd term, because that is throwing away a "gimmie" pres candidate in the following election cycle. Rudy would have the name recognition, experience/electibility credentials, and would seem to have NY support (esp. post 9/11) to face off against Hillary, who seems to be considered as a contender. His post 9/11 performance won him kudos nationally, even internationally.
I've heard Colin Powell's wife is dead-set against the mud-slinging inherent in a VP/prez candidacy. I believe she's had problems with depression (etc?), and doesn't want to be exposed to the ugliness/stress factor.
Interesting thread, requiring further investigation as to up-and-coming GOP VP candidates -- I'm pretty confident it won't be Cheney.
Well, Ara, there was less intelligence and "credible threat" information concerning al Qaeda and use of airliners than there has been about, say, Saddam's WMD programs. Condi and the Bush administration inherited the blind spots left behind by the previous occupants where al Qaeda was concerned. I hadn't heard about the supposed "not-reading-to-the-end" but what the President and his National Security Advisor receive is usually a condensed version of a report, not the entire mountain of data usually listed in the actual report. And as for the 9/11 commission, I'm pretty impressed that she's not going to put the classified information she possesses at risk of being exposed for political purposes.
I don't think she's as in-over-her-head as most of the Democratic candidates as of this time. Even with Guiliani as the most likely replacement veep, she'd still make a worthy possibility.
Condi Rice is beautiful and intelligent (the two go together), and I would love to see her as President or as Vice President. But, as a Vice President...
...could she fit Spiro Agnew's shoes?