I'm a fan of Secretary Rice, but there are a lot of reasons to doubt we'll see her on the Republican ticket. One of my McCain guys, reacting to this story, noted that the senator and Rice have interacted cordially and professionally, but it's not like they're close personally. He said she was "not a name that comes up" when the idle chatter turns to running mates.
If McCain wanted a vice president with foreign policy experience (and it's not like it's a weak spot on the candidate), he could pick other figures that add a lot more electorally — Colin Powell, and Gen. David Petraeus, to name two.
Rice has relatively high approval ratings, which is a plus. I wouldn't expect her to single-handedly move much of the African-American vote, nor narrow the gender gap much. She doesn't seem likely to bring over any geographical areas or states, at least at first glance. She's never run for any elected office before.
As national security adviser and secretary of state, Rice worked hard and diligently, taking on Herculean challenges but with limited results. (Not necessarily her fault; you try getting the Palestinians to sign a peace deal with Israel when Hamas runs the Gaza Strip.) She's currently fourth in line to the presidency, and if some dire crisis were to eliminate the elected officials ahead of her, she seems certain to rise to the occasion. But it's hard to argue her three years and change running the State Department have been a cavalcade of shining successes.
Finally, she's been President Bush's right-hand woman for the past seven years and change. If the President's approval rating was at 60 percent, we would be having a different conversation. But when the President's approval rating is about 30 percent, and the incessant mantra of the election is "change", McCain probably won't want someone who's been associated with the foreign policy decisions in Washington for most of a decade.
Second, if this story is true (and you can tell I have my doubts)... doesn't it look a little unseemly for a Secretary of State to be angling for a position on the ticket? Doesn't she have a full plate as is?
Posted by: Mike ||
04/07/2008 15:21 ||
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#1
Besides, everyone knows Condi wants to be the next commissioner of the NFL.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
04/07/2008 19:37 Comments ||
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#2
the real irony of this is that Obama is a white man that is half black and went to the highly prestigious Punaho high school where the majority of the attendees would have been mixed race. She is a black descendant of slaves who lived in Mississippi during the KKK era.
Yet the black community swoons for Obama and disses Condi as a "plantation mamma". Go figure.
Mary Bruce Reports: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is actively courting the vice presidential nomination, Republican strategist Dan Senor said. “Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this,” Senor said this morning on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” According to Senor, Rice has been cozying up to the Republican elite.
“There's this ritual in Washington: The Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Grover Norquist, he holds a weekly meeting of conservative leaders -- about 100, 150 people, sort of inside, chattering, class types,” Senor said. “They all typically get briefings from political conservative leaders. Ten days ago, they had an interesting visit -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- the first time a secretary of state has visited the Wednesday meeting.”
Senor explained that Rice’s history in public office would make her a prime candidate, especially in light of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain’s emphasis on experience throughout his campaign. “What the McCain campaign has to consider is whether or not they want to pick a total outsider, a fresh face, someone a lot younger than him, a governor who people aren't that familiar with," Senor said. "The challenge they're realizing is that they'll have to have to spend 30 to 45 days, which they won't have at that point, educating the American public about who this person is."
“The other category is someone who people instantly say, the second they see that announcement, 'I get it, that person could be president tomorrow,'"; Senor added. "Condi Rice is an option.”
That makes sense, I suppose, most Americans know Condi. Whether they'd vote for her isn't clear. I haven't seen any 'favorable/unfavorable' opinion polls on her. The fear is that she'd bring more baggage from the current administration, but given that the Dhimmicrats will tar McCain with the war anyway, it likely couldn't get any worse.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2008 00:00 ||
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#6
As posted before, J C Watts would be a better candidate because it would shore up the conservative element of the party/campaign. At least give a lot of conservatives warm feelings in a Teddy Roosevelt kind of way.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/07/2008 9:11 Comments ||
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#8
I think the evidence that she wants the job is, oh, how to be charitable . . . a bit on the thin side of "not much there."
That said, she's not my first choice, but we could do a lot worse. It would piss off all the people I like to see pissed off, and monkey-wrench the Dems identity politics.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/07/2008 9:11 Comments ||
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#9
I love the ignorant people who think she's 'changed' since she went to State. Most Republicans loved her as NSA. Do you really think she's not doing what W asks her to do? She's doing her freaking job and all of a sudden everyone hates her. How lame. The woman is the most intelligent, articulate person in DC. She would destroy anyone in any debate. I would love to see her as McCain's VP. Once she has a chance to go out and lay out her positions on everything, I'm sure the ignorant will change their minds on her. Anyone who doesn't realize she's just doing her job, which by the way is what the President tells her, is a moron. She's coddling the arabs because Bush is in 'legacy' mode. She's proven herself in the past to be strong on terror and strong on defence.
#11
She definitely wouldn't be the worst choice and in a lot of ways, one of the best. She is a woman, and black. The left will try to spin her as a Uncle (Aunt?) Tom and only working for whitie, but the truth is they really can't touch her. She would bring in a lot more of the black vote and a ton of the female vote.
While I am not happy with her DOS job, I believe AllahHateMe is right. She is doing what her boss wants, unlike the CIA and other agencies. She is tough, determined and can stand up to any limp wristed bully congressman that is on the hill. I saw her destroy all of the questioners during the Iraq war inquiry and she would crush any VP debater during the run to the white house.
I still stick to my original prediction, the first black president will be a conservative. Obama is proving that the dhimocrat pool of candidates is fatally tainted with race-hustlers, haters and pimps.
#12
I'm with AllahHateMe and DarthVader on this, but I don't think it will happen -- too much Bush-association for the Democrats. Time will heal that. I'm thinking Condi Rice for President, 2012.
#13
If the genie pops out of the lamp and I get to wish, here's how it goes:
McCain/Steele '08
McCain decides not to run again in '12
Steele/Rice in 2012 . . . the "Black is Beautiful" ticket!
Posted by: Mike ||
04/07/2008 10:32 Comments ||
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#14
Mike Steele won't be on the ticket. He's a good man, but his highest elected office was Lt. Gov, and he lost the election for governor. Not blaming him, that was a tough assignment, but he doesn't have the gravitas needed to be VP.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2008 10:42 Comments ||
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And I rather like the in-your-faceness of Condi as VP candidate. It says a bunch of things that need saying:
* No apologies for the war on terror
* She's an (R) and female, and (R) and black and a generation younger than McCain.
* She's more stylish, attractive, athletic and graceful than HRC, more black / civil rights veteran and equally articulate to BHO with a lot more substance. While he was bein' raised up by two women he now scorns, her daddy was patrolling the neighborhood streets with a shotgun while raising an accomplished young woman. You do the math on life stories that can inspire ...
#17
I'm with you Deacon. Michael Steele seems to be the real deal. He's sharp and got both feet on the ground,and headed in the right direction. I like J.C. Watts too, but Steele is really impressive.
#19
Steele is well known to the GOP insiders from his time as GOPAC leader. Same with Watts. Both of whom I like and who are genial, and good campaigners.
The question about Rics is how effective a campaigner is she? Can she do the "Hatchetman" job the VP is called to do in most elections?
Its that campaign part of the role that almost requires the GOP to put a minority candidate at VP if Obama wins the nomination, or a female if its Hillary.
Again, can she get the job done? I don't have enough data on her as a public speaker, in an attack role, to say one way or another.
#20
The weakness OS has identified may well be McCain's main reason for selecting her. McCain has bent over backwards to civilize the debate this year. Note the non-reaction to the NYT hatchet job on his son this weekend. McCain is the real candidate for change this year. I just hope he is more successful with it than Thompson was.
Not that she's not capable. She's very capable, but it's still not going to happen.
McCain must keep his distance from the Bush administration when the general campaign election rolls around. He's done with the base of R's after the D primary ends. He will immediately choose an unknown as his VP choice, someone younger, accomplished but not connected to the abysmal popularity of the Bush administration, and good looking.
Condi is too well-known as exactly what she should be respected for, listening to her boss and doing her job. But that taints her for the unknown 15% of the voters who are looking for the change every single candidate both R &D are selling.
Hopefully whichever Governor McCain chooses for VP will have the balls she does, but doubtful. Hopefully McCain sees the wisdom of bringing her into his administration as well. She's a hell of a hand.
#22
I once liked Condi but to be real, she's a soviet expert and the handling of the Russians has not been what I would consider impressive. Her handling of the Palestinians has been an embarrassment. She's never held elected office. She doesn't seem to even want the job. Why wont this meme go away?
#23
And lastly, the Republicans would do best to avoid anyone too closely associated with the current administration. Like W or not, he makes some people nuts and association with that would not be useful.
#24
I can definitely agree that her closeness to the Bush Administration is a definite liability. As to rjschwarz, her handling of the palestinians has been as her boss the POTUS has instructed. As with all lame-duck presidents, W is in 'legacy' mode. And for some reason, they (outgoing POTUSes) all think trying to force the Israeli's into stupid concessions for the paleo's is the thing to do. Of course that's just stupid, but you can't hate her for doing her job, which for a diplomat is dealing with stupid people and not blowing them up. That would be Petraeus' job. My whole point is, it's stupid to hate on her for doing her job as she is instructed to by her boss, the President. I'm sure if she was SecDef or still NSA, she'd be advising the President on the best ways to kill the bad guys.
I don't know much about Steele, I'd love to read more, can anyone provide some references?
#25
Articulate my ass. Palestine is like Birmingham? This is a level of moral equivalence that is truly frightening.
She may have executed the president's policy, but Bush started well wrt to the paleostinians, but he has been sucked into to legacy game, or is it the Saudi oil game?
So she didn't apologize for the WOT. She would not have stayed in even this government if she had.
This would be a choice that formalized the party telling the conservative part of the base to take a walk. This process started with comprehensive immigration reform.
By the way AHM, dislike of the DOS and Condi's performance there does not constitute ignorance.
Fixing the intelligence problem should be at the top of the agenda for the next president. It's too late for the Bush administration to do much, except make things worse.
The reorganization that created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was a mistake, forced on a reluctant Bush administration by a Congress determined to show it was doing something to fix the problems that led to 9/11. But the "reform" has actually made some of those problems worse. It embodied the classic Washington response of throwing in more money and a new organization chart. What we have created is more confusion.
When the next president thinks about fixing the CIA, he or she ought to consider the radical thought that it's time to blow up the CIA and start over.
#2
The general mistrust of intelligence is spilling over into the agency's contacts with U.S. corporations... Corporate CEOs considering whether to help the government today tell intelligence officials that they would like to be patriotic, but they can't expose shareholders to the risk of litigation. That's a worry Congress should help remove.
Which won't happen until the adults take back control of the Democrats.
In the opening game of the baseball season between the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics in Japan, 11 runs were scored.
That lede would be unsatisfying to most sports fans, because it doesn't indicate which team won. But it is very like most of the reporting of battles in Iraq:
"The deadliest clashes were in Basra, where at least 47 people were killed and 223 wounded in the two days of fighting," wrote the AP's Kim Gamel in a dispatch March 26.
Ms. Gamel was writing about the opening clashes of Operation Knight's Charge, the effort by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki to take control of Iraq's second most populous city from Iranian-backed militias, chiefly the Mahdi Army nominally headed by the Moqtada al Sadr.
Fighting subsided after Mr. al Sadr called for a cease fire Sunday.
The cease fire "is seen as a serious blow" to Mr. Maliki, because "he had vowed that he would see the Basra campaign through to a military victory," wrote Erica Goode and James Glanz of the New York Times Monday.
But Nibras Kazimi, an Iraqi who is a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute, says his sources in Iraq tell him "the Mahdi army is losing very badly."
So who's right? It is rare in the annals of war for the side which is winning to seek a cease fire. And though Mr. al Sadr has said he wants one, Mr. Maliki hasn't said he'll grant one. "Security operations in Basra will continue," he said Monday.
"The Iraq army has cordoned off the city and is methodically advancing to allow residents to leave the city amidst the fighting, militants to turn over arms, while gradually isolating the factions they intend to uproot," a Marine liaison officer to the Iraqi security forces said in an email Tuesday to radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt.
Why might Mr. al Sadr have sought a cease fire? "Sources in Basra tell TIME that there has been a large scale retreat in the oil-rich port city because of low morale and because ammunition is low due to the closure of the Iranian border," TIME reported Sunday.
"They were running short of ammunition, food and water," a U.S. military officer told Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal. "In short, (the Mahdi army) had no ability to sustain the effort."
That sure doesn't sound like al Sadr's forces were winning. It is easier to maintain the illusion that they were when friendly, enemy and noncombatant casualties are lumped together.
His sources in the U.S. military tell him the Mahdi army was getting pounded, Bill Roggio said. "According to an unofficial tally... 571 Mahdi army fighters have been killed, 881 have been wounded, 490 have been captured, and 30 have surrendered over the course of seven days of fighting."
"The U.S. and Iraqi military never came close to inflicting casualties at such a high rate during the height of major combat operations against al Qaida in Iraq during the summer and fall of 2007," he said.
The Mahdi army has won by surviving, media analysts say. But it seems apparent the Mahdi army survived by quitting.
Mr. al Sadr offered the cease fire after travelled to Iran to meet with the head of the Qods (Jerusalem) force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the McClatchy Newspapers reported. The lawmakers urged Brigadier Gen. Qassem Suliemani to lean on Mr. al Sadr (who is in Iran) to offer the cease fire.
If true (Mr. Kazimi's government source in Baghdad described it as a "naive fabrication"), the McClatchy story indicates the Mahdi army is under Iranian control.
Why would Iran want the fighting to stop?
"The Iranians have realized that they no longer can use the Shiite militia threat to force Washington's hand on Iraq without jeopardizing their own interests," speculated STRATFOR, a private intelligence service.
Fighting among Shia factions, and the increasing independence of Shia factions they thought they controlled has virtually dashed hopes Iran would be able to dominate Iraq through Shia proxies, STRATFOR said.
"The mullahs know that they are losing," said Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute. "Their great dream of driving America out of Iraq, which seemed to be about to be fulfilled just a year and a half ago, has now turned into the nightmare of humiliation and defeat for the Islamic republic. The Maliki government is attacking the remnants of the Mahdi army in Basra, that same government the mullahs thought they had under control."
The wounds inflicted on Barack Obama by the hateful speech of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are serious and profound.
Why else would ministers gather at Obama's church in Chicago—Trinity United Church of Christ—to hold a news conference demanding a "sacred" national dialogue on race?
"The intersection of politics, religion and race has heightened our awareness of how easy it is for our conversations about race to become anything but sacred," Rev. John Thomas, president of the United Church of Christ, said last week. "That's why we are calling for sacred conversations, and for the respect of sacred places to begin right here and now."
In other words, listen up you reporters: Back off.
Clearly, it's difficult enough to pray and reflect upon the story of the Good Samaritan without pesky reporters asking you to defend Wright's indefensible, hateful words.
It's got to be tough when reporters ask about that 10,000-square-foot suburban mansion the church bought for Wright, the one along the golf course, the one with the $1.6 million mortgage held by the church.
Wright has damaged Obama by cursing America from the pulpit, breaking one of the 10 Commandments along the way, shouting "G-d damn America!," blaming our nation for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and suggesting our government infected people of color with AIDS.
"And, they will attack you, if you try to point out what's going on in white America, the U.S. of KKK-A!" Wright was quoted as saying.
Now that he's retired, I wonder if he'll play a tape of that one while he's out on his deck, perhaps holding a new titanium driver, smiling, absently listening to himself shouting "white America, the U.S. of KKK-A!" but also thinking ahead, to the water hazards and sand traps on that back nine.
Is this a great country or what? Yet while he relaxes, the rest of us are asked to have another national dialogue on race? I don't know about you, but my ears hurt. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
04/07/2008 09:58 ||
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#1
I think I have an idea on how a "sacred national dialogue on race" is gonna work out.
Prediction? Not too good for whitey...
#2
Like most of the leftest Newspeak, they understand 'dialogue' to mean a one way declaration not subject to critical analysis or debate.
When they walk the walk, we'll talk the talk. And by walk that is some serious public critical self examination. You know, the kind Marxist demand of everyone else but absolve themselves of.
#3
I say let these Black Liberation Theology folks speak. Sometimes, the best way to silence hateful venom is to let it out in the open sun so that all can see it. The first amendment will do more damage to Rev. Wright's message than anything else.
Posted by: Jack Slineger4174 ||
04/07/2008 13:03 Comments ||
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#4
Or whitey might decide to finally say: You know what, good idea. Let's really talk about race.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
