Cheney out in '04; Condi vs Hillary in '08

Great Debates
41

Thank goodness SOMEBODY remembers this besides me.
Actually, that’s a bit of an overstatement, a lot of New Yorkers do remember the real Rudy (the one who selflessly volunteered to stay in office after his term was supposed to be up. :p).

I’m trying not to draw too much attention to myself from laughing. Rock is one of the most insightful comedians of our time. :slight_smile:
In the unlikely event that one or both of them ended up running (I don’t think Powell would do it for a lot of reasons; avoiding this awkward situation would be one), I don’t know that black voters would vote for a candidate who wouldn’t support most of the things they did JUST because s/he looked like them. That’s not giving anybody a lot of credit.

42

Elvis and DTC:

I thought I was clear about what I meant by “getting” the minority or gender vote, but I guess not. Here’s what I was getting at:

Firstly, I do not believe that any old minority candidate will get the minority vote. But if one candidate is a minority, and another isn’t and both candidates have some appeal to the minority, then those minority voters on the fence will likely go with the minority candidate. Pls note the condition in bold. That is key to what I mean by “getting” the minority vote. Sorry if I was unclear in my earlier post.

In the Hillary/Condi case, this is a lot more clear cut wrt to gender than race (for obvious reasons).

And, yes, Chris Rock is a comic genius. Especially when you see him, uncensored, on HBO.:slight_smile:

43

Oops. Should’ve been “wrt race than gender”.

I am proposing that the “fence sitting” women can’t say “Well I like both candidates, so I’ll go with the woman” since they’re both women, but “fence sitting” minorities might say “Well I like both candidates, so I’ll go with the minority”.

44

I don’t think too many inorities, especially black minorities are really sitting on the fence. The African-American vote is pretty solidly with the dems, and they’re not likely to switch for a woman who is number two on the ticket unless the GOP can promise some pretty major policies changes to go with it.

45

I think it’d be brilliant for the Republicans to run two pro-choice black people in 2008. They’d cut so deeply into the liberal vote they might revolutionize party alignment in this country permanently.

46

plnr
While I fear you are correct, I only hope that the unwashed masses are a part of the majority who do not vote (only 39.3% turnout in 2002).

I originally thought that Condie would be up for the nod in 2008. Now, I’m pretty convinced that she’ll head back home to CA. I only hope that the local party officials see fit to support her over Ah-nuld as she actually has a chance. It would make sense, too, for the Republican Party nationwide to support Condie in CA as she may assist in turning the electoral votes back to the right.

The presidency is certainly in her grasp if she plays her cards right, but 2008 is a touch too soon.

47

“I only hope that the local party officials see fit to support her over Ah-nuld as she actually has a chance.”

After what Davis has done, the GOP might be able to run Donald Duck against him or any other Dem and win. Can’t say I agree with your assessment of Arnold’s chances. It wouldn’t be a slaughter like Dem vs Arnold in celebrity death match, but I thing Arnold would still win overall. I’d hate to go up against so popular an icon.

48

John: Agree with your assessment on Gov Davis. Just one nitpick: us Californians will not be subjected to Davis anymore as he is currently serving his second term. Whether or not he finishes term two is up to the results of the recall proceedings.

You’re right on Arnold in terms of broad market appeal. Additionally, CA has a precedent of electing famous actors. My thinking is that CA has been a launching pad for numerous presidential candidates…and Arnold, being foreign born, may be DQ’d by the Republican kingmakers. Condie, OTOH, could run.

49

Mac: Good points all 'round. I forgot Davis was already a two-fer.

50

JohnGlad to be of assistance. I often forget about how long we’ve had Davis, too…or at least trying to do so.

51

I forgot to add, though, that I do expect Davis to finish out his term and be there in all his glory when Bush runs again in '04.

The recall against him might be a little louder this time, but there’s been a recall against every CA governor in the last 30-odd years. Not one of them had any real traction. I don’t like the guy one bit, but I think a recall effort is mostly revenge politics. He was elected, let him finish. It’s not worth the disruption to the gov’t that would ensue.

52

Republicans would vote for the right woman, black or white, in a heartbeat. Conservatives have never been shy about supporting minorities or women who agree with them. Clarence Thomas is wildly popular with conservatives. So is Condi Rice.

The reason conservatives will elect a black person or a woman (or both) before Democrats do is because electing a women erases Republican weaknesses (the belief that they are anti-woman or anti-minority), while a female Democratic candidate would reinforce the Democrat’s weaknesses (weak on national security, politically correct, pandering to women and minorities).

It’s the same reason why George Bush I could pass a big tax hike while Clinton would get clobbered, and why Tony Blair could get support to attack Iraq. In Blair’s case, for instance, his main opposition was going to come from Labour. But he had enough Labour support to keep that to a minimum, and since his position was a Tory position, he had the support of the opposition.
If a Tory prime minister had tried it, he would have had ZERO support from Labour.

This is the reason why Bill Clinton could threaten to attack North Korea (which he did, on multiple occasions), attack Iraq in operation Desert Fox, and go to war in the Balkans with nary a peep from the government or really the people. Conservatives supported the policy, and Democrats supported the President. Bush, on the other hand, has had to fight down charges of warmongering and impeachment threats.
This is also why Republicans often tend to increase the size of government more than Liberals. Bill Clinton was heavily constrained by Republicans when he tried to increase spending. If Bush tries to increase spending, he only loses a few Republicans, and gains support of Democrats, because that’s what they want.

53

Waitasecond, folks - you know who Dubya would like to anoint as his successor, and once you know that, you know why Cheney will be the veep nominee in '04, if he doesn’t have another heart attack first.

He’d like his brother Jeb to succeed him. And - if Bush wins in '04 - my prediction is that by 2007, Jeb will have the sort of groundswell of support from the big donors that put Dubya miles ahead of the rest of the GOP pack in early 1999.

So forget Condi and Colin. It ain’t gonna happen.

54

Not to mention, both Condi and Colin, besides being pro-choice, are both much more centrist than the bulk of their party. This isn’t to say they couldn’t win the nomination, once they were a sitting VP - they’d have little problem, since the GOP prefers coronations to primary dogfights - but they’d spend their hypothetical presidencies at war with their own party.

There’s this other phenomenon with black Republicans, btw: it seems they can only rise to high office by being appointed there. The Chris Rock line that marley quoted has a real point: behind Colin and Condi, there’s no bench strength. Where’s the black GOP congresspersons? There are none. Any black GOP governors? I don’t think so, though I could be wrong.

[soapbox]
The GOP has become the true party of racial affirmative action. The moment they find a black Republican with two brain cells to rub together, the Heritage Foundation hires him, and turns him into a columnist. If he’s got a law degree, the next step will be a Federal judgeship. Clarence Thomas may be wildly popular among conservatives, but when hardly anyone had ever heard of him, he was jumped ahead of dozens of more qualified conservative candidates for the Supreme Court simply because he was young and black, as well.
[/soapbox]

Which brings us around to Condi and California. If they can anoint her the GOP nominee, she may have a chance. But if there’s a real primary fight…well, California may have a liberal Democratic majority, but its conservative Republicans are very conservative. They’re not gonna like Condi, and if there’s a True Believer running against her in the primary whose knuckles don’t visibly drag the ground, she’s gonna have a rough time of it. So if Condi throws her hat into that ring, bet against her. You heard it here first.

Hey Sam, Clinton and Daddy Bush both passed big tax hikes. Guess which one of them got clobbered. :smiley:

55

RTF:

Thanks for adding a lot of very interesting new ideas to this thread.

Jeb is kind of a wildcard, isn’t he? Personally, I like him a lot more than “W”. But might he not be the victim of too much legacy? At some point, some of the famous “fence sitters” might not want another Bush in the White House. Isn’t it 3rd world countries that have family dynasties?

Could Bush pull a JFK and appoint his brother to some signficant cabinet post? Seems unlikely, but I was too young when JFK did it to have any feel for how much of an issue this was. If he can swing it, that might do a lot to propel Jeb’s career. (Not VP, obviously. Bush/Bush in '04 is too far out to be possible.)

It does seem that Republicans are more successful in getting their guy (or gal, in this case) elected if he comes from the more conservative wing, but Dems really run into trouble when they pick someone from the more liberal wing. Not sure about Condi, but it sure seems like Colin could break that conventional wisdom like no one else could. He just comes across as having so much more integrity than almost any other politician I can think of.

56

I don’t know why you guys are so adamant that a pro-choice Republican can’t win. All the candidate has to do is waffle a bit, and the religious right will look the other way. George Bush I was pro-choice - he made some waffling comments about the rights of the mother, and how he would support abortion under certain circumstances, and Republicans gave him a pass. And wasn’t Bob Dole pro-choice before running for president? He wasn’t exactly a far-right conservative, either.

The fact is, the modern Republican party is very inclusive. It has growing ranks of neo-cons and libertarians who are quite socially liberal. This isn’t your grandpa’s Republican party any more. And the religious right has been waning in influence for quite a while, other than in the deep south.

The political calculus will look like this: Can a fiscally conservative, socially liberal candidate pick up enough independents and Democrats to offset the lack of support from the religious right, which, after all, will never vote for a Democrat anyway?

Frankly, I think there is a new large voter alignment shaping up. It’s people who are socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. Whether they fall into the Liberal camp or the Conservative camp depends on how much they weight those two factors, and how the candidates match them.

Once some of the old power structures fade away, I think you’re going to see candidates moving to fill this niche. And the Republicans are poised to fit it far better than Democrats, because Democrats are tied to too many special interests to become true fiscal conservatives. Big education, Big labor, lawyers, etc. Plus, they are still too much in the grip of the old progressives and socialists and protectionists that made up the ‘old’ Democratic party. The Republicans are doing a better job of shedding their old baggage than are the Democrats.

So I wouldn’t be surprised to see a socially liberal, fiscally conservative black female presidential candidate. If she comes out standing for lower regulations, lower taxes, but is pro-choice (at least party - no third trimester abortions, no partial birth abortions, etc), she could not only get nominated, but she could clean up in the general election.

57

“Only Nixon could go to China”?

58

You think that if the ticket were made up of two black people that were pro-choice that the Right would just forget about it? I live in Mississippi, and let me tell you don’t ever underestimate the “fervor” of the far right. I smell third party candidate all over that deal. I can hear my fellow statesmen right now privately thinking "Well should I vote for a p*ssy liberal or a n*****? I’ll just vote for the crazy KKK guy instead.

59

As a group, Republicans are not racists, and the overwhelming majority would happily accept someone as qualified as Rice as a candidate. However, as hard as it may be for many of us to believe, there is still a good-sized group of people out there who simply would not vote for a black woman, period. It isn’t that large a group, but it might be one or two percent, and in a race likely to be another nail-biter, you don’t have one or two percent to spare.

Of course, having a black woman on the ticket (in and of itself) will pick up a few votes from the other end, so that might not be disastrous by itself.

The pro-choice thing, however, could prove deadlier. There are an awful lot of single-issue voters out there when it comes to abortion, greatly outnumbering the few from the other end who might vote Republican just because the VP candidate supports abortion rights.

Putting these together, adding Rice to the ticket would be a great way for Bush to get Nader’d, as long as there’s a Buchanan or similar pro-life white guy to jump to.

I think Cheney will be on the ticket again in 2004, but make no mistake: based on what I’ve read of his medical condition and what they’ve done for him, Cheney is on some seriously borrowed time. If he makes it through 2008 without going to the great undisclosed location in the sky (and he and Bush win in 2004), I could see him resigning midway through his term, paving the way for Jeb to step in and bask in the free publicity. You heard it here first.

Dr. J

60

A socially liberal, fiscally conservative, pro-choice black woman is NOT going to carry the South as futureman pointed out. And without carrying the South (which has gone Republican pretty consistently since the mid-1960s) the candidate is going to have a tough race.