Well, if it happens I predicted it!!! So I want credit, nothing special, just my due. Say, a golden statue in the center of DC, where young women will leave roses and their phone number every day.
There are a number of problems with O’Reilly’s little fantasy. For one thing, there is no reason to believe that Cheney is willing to step down. He’s way too vicious and evil to leave on his own and he’s already on record as saying he has every intention of staying on the ticket for '04. The main issue a while ago was his health but he hasn’t dropped dead in like two years now.
I also don’t buy that Cheney doesn’t want to be POTUS. Every politician wants to be POTUS, no matter what they may say publicly.
Another problem is that Condie Rice is pro-choice. That alone would torpedo any chance she would have of getting on the ticke. A Powell/Rice ticket would be an all pro-choice ticket and that will never happen in the GOP, unfortunately.
The biggest problem with O’Reilly’s scenario, though, is that Shrub is going to lose in '04. The next POTUS will be Howard Dean. You heard it here first.
Except, for one thing, in 2008, Powell will be 71. The age thing would definately be a factor.
Can you imagine two pro-choicers on the GOP ticket? Neither can I.
Is this more of the same personality obsession spawned by the same “observers” who were adamant that Giuliani would beat Hillary handily for the NY Senate seat? Really, it does seem that her prospects are far more discussed by the partisan right than by the moderates or liberals she is assumed to be one of. Same goes for Ted Kennedy, too, although less than in the past.
Time to recognize when you’re being sold a bogeyman, people.
Elvis:
You lost me. When did Hillary run against Giuliani?? She hasn’t yet, but I’d bet my next year’s salary that she’d lose that one.
DTC:
"He’s way too vicious and evil to leave on his own ". You’re right. He hasn’t had a chance to boil any babies yet, so he won’t give up. I was wondering why we always see him rubbing his hands together and muttering “hee hee hee hee heeeee” under his breath.
But you do have a good point on the pro-choice deal. I’m not sure how firmly entrenched they are in a “pro-choice” stance that they couldn’t, what is the word, “triangulate”?
Don’t you remember how she ran against Giuliani before Rick Lazio came in? I forget why he backed out.
The prostate cancer, futureman.
No way in heck she’d win a race he could pay full attention to.
Bill Clinton – whom I neither liked nor voted for – was a masterful politician, with a true gift for connecting with the votors. Hillary, in contrast, has a political tin ear, and a rare talent for irritating people. There are many who will vote for her because they like the postitions she espouses, but very few because they actually like her.
BC, seems to me she only “irritates” people who wouldn’t seriously consider voting for her anyway. That reflects on them more than on her, wouldn’tja say?
Elvis:
Politicians almost always need to draw some votes from outside their base. When you have really high “negatives” like Hillary, that’s hard to do. I think that’s what BC was referring to.
Somehow, I see a conservative woman president before I see a liberal one. I’ll have to think about how I’d articulate my reasoning for that, though. Maybe later.
That race was neck-and-neck when Giuliani left. He might’ve won, but “no way in heck” isn’t supported by the way things were going.
Democrats nominated a woman for Vice President some 20 years ago, just for the sake of noting it. And as for the “race-card wing” jive: a black Republican ticket vs. Democrats would be interesting from a sociology perspective, but there are black Republicans now - prominent ones like Clarence Thomas and J.C. Watts, plus obviously Powell and Rice - and few black voters seem to accept the notion that Republicans have their best interests at heart, given the percentages at which they normally vote Democrat.
It’d take QUITE a trick for a party that is actively opposing affirmative action in 2003 to run a black candidate in 2008 and not be accused of, at the least, pandering. And in addition, black voters are not going to vote for a candidate JUST because he/she is black. Give some credit. Likewise, women will not necessarily vote for a female candidate.
On another note, my personal suspicion is that Powell - remember how much speculation there was prior to September 11th that he’d quit his job? - will be done with politics of this sort after Bush is out of office.
Oh, and another (perhaps trivial) point: Republicans were ALL OVER Hillary in 2000 because she was running for the Senate and had never held any other political office. (Of course, I think Mike Bloomberg here in NY has the same distinction.) So running Condoleeza Rice, who despite the importance of her current job has also never been elected to political office, would be more than a bit hypocritical. Not that I don’t expect hypocrisy in politics, I’m just pointing it out.
John Mace, I’ll actually agree that the first woman and the first black elected to the White House are more likely to be Republicans, not Democrats, but I don’t think it’s hard to see why. Only Nixon could go to China, because someone with a less hardline background couldn’t afford the criticism for blatant pandering and selling out. Only a party not known as progressive could seem to act progressively in such a symbolic way and still get votes, even if it is only symbolic.
I know what BC meant - I don’t think you’ll find those “high negatives” outside the demographics that simply won’t vote for her anyway, as I stated. That situation could backfire and work to her advantage as well nationally as it did in New York, though, under the theory used by many voters that you can tell someone by their enemies.
Even Eleanor Roosevelt had a large cadre of haters, and for many of the same reasons, but they’re not who is remembered today, are they?
Oh, it’s quite obvious. There’ll be a few people who agree with the party and will vote for you no matter what, but in order to actually win you’ll have to convince a few people from the other camp as well. Since it’d be easier to convince open-minded liberals than misogynist conservatives to vote for a woman, a conservative president would have an easier time.
No, I’m not very serious. 
In any political contest you have the people who will never under any circumstances vote for Candidate A, and you have those who under no circumstanced would NOT vote for Candidate A. The contest is about those voters who lie between the extremes.
And this is where Hillary runs into trouble. She has, as I said, a political tin ear, and has a tendancy to say just the wrong thing. This won’t change any votes amongst the “never-evers” or the “committed”, but can and does tick off the undecided.
One example was a statement she made when asked about whether the Clinton’s health care plans were too ambitious for small businesses to afford. Her reply was to the effect that she “wasn’t responsible for undercapitalized companies.” Regardless of the merits of the plan, this clumsy response seriously damaged the efforts to promote it.
Bill Clinton, on the other hand, had an instinctual feel for how best to address any particular group, and almost never put a foot wrong.
Note that this has nothing whatsoever to do about how well she is able to serve once elected, or about the policies she favors or not. Whatever you may feel about her merits or demerits, she is just not the masterful politician her husband is, which may or may not be a bad thing, after all.
BC:
There is a lot of merit to what you say about our gal, Hillary. But she’s a quick learner, and I would’ve never thought she’d get elected in NY, so who knows? Of course, the whole NY thing was complicated by Giuliani having to drop out, so maybe she had some dumb luck there. And she’s redefined herself a bit, esp in her support of Bush and the Iraq war.
Hilary against another woman, and a black woman at that, would have a tough time winning. While not many women or blacks would vote along strict gender/race lines, enough would be swayed by gender/race if they weren’t terriblly thrilled with the oponent. So Hillary doesn’t get the “gender” vote, but Condi gets the “minority” vote, in that sense. Both Hillary and Condi would have a lot of appeal to many women and minorities in this country.
The great unwashed won’t elect a black woman to national office in our lifetime, no matter how smart and well accomplished. You’re all giving the electorate way, way, way too much credit.
In the same sense that Clarence Thomas “got the minority vote”? You don’t get the gender/race/whatever vote by appearing to be going after it, but by showing a genuine commitment to the causes that they support. It always seems to come as a surprise to those who see the world in terms of demographics to be paternalistically manipulated to hear that they’re actual people with actual concerns, and not monolithic supporters of whatever policy they’re supposed to be for. Bill Clinton understood that and it worked beautifully for him. No question Hillary does, too.
My recollection of the NY polls was that she had pulled about even with Giuliani already, even before he had an excuse to bail out coming up. It’s easy to forget how unpopular he had made himself up to 9/10, with the NYPD racial shooting cases and a ludicrously messy affair/divorce among other things, and that played a role in the election, too.
The problem is that Condie will not be accepted by the right. Is the GOP going to suddenly change it’s position on abortion?
And John Mace, I think it’s a hugely premature assumtion that Rice would automatically get the minority vote just because she’s black. As Chris Rock said, “All the black people who voted for Bush are both in his cabinet.”
Ther isn’t going to be a huge migration of African-American support for Bush just because he puts a black woman on the ticket.