Isn’t that par for the course at the GOP nowadays?
. . . or USAG . . .
In case you haven’t seen it, CNN has some nice profiles of potential contenders.
I had once joked about Condi. Further cementing himself to a failed administration’s failings? She pull the Black vote away from Obama? If anything it might dull the turn-out of those who are scared by Obama’s complexion!
I hadn’t heard about the one I have queued up - Chris Cox - before this. Mainly I’d been hearing about Charlie Crist, Bobby Jindal, and Mitt Romney. But Cox brings a lot of what McCain needs. As SEC chair he brings the McCain more economic gravitas than Romney does without the animosity. More can be read about him here and it can be seen that he in particular is big on providing additional transparency to the financial markets, which fits with McCain’s mindset. He also is experienced with Homeland Security issues which also meshes well with McCain’s preferred narrative.
He moves to my best guess with my former guess, Crist, next and then Romney and Jindal. Crist would assure Florida is in the fold, Romney would also bring some economic muscle and Jindal would excite about a new generation of leadership and big tentness. Condi? No way.
Interesting ideas, thanks.
I’ve heard that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is the front runner as McCain’s VP choice. He’s been working on McCain’s campaign so he’s an insider. And he’s a conservative but not too controversial.
There’s been a lot of talk about that up here, but I’d be surprised if he was the pick. For one thing, he’s not very popular in his own state right now and I doubt he could deliver Minnesota (somewhat regarded as a “purple” state) in November. For another thing, he’s got some positions which might be problematic for the Republican base, namely on global warming and immigration. The latter is an issue which is already a sore spot for conservatives ambivalent on McCain.
What righties would probably like about T-Paw is that he is economically a conservative extremist – ruthlessly, sociopathologically conservative. Don’t let him fool you when he tries to say he didn’t raise taxes, though. His tactic was to impose a sales tax and then call it a “users fee” instead of a tax. He’d act all indignant if someone else called it a tax.
On a personal level, I hear he’s kind of a dick.
Please Mccain, do pick Rice; that way we can just go ahead and qualify the Dem’s primary as the general election. Hell while he’s at it might as well bring in Cheney as Sec Defense and Rummy as UN Ambasador.
Jindal would be an interesting pick. He scares the hell out off me because he is about Rush-right on every issue, but I would love to see the far-right voters and pundits have to deal with themselves over having an Indian-American on the ticket.
I’m surprised no one, including CNN, has mentioned Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. Having a woman from the NE could help among independents, and from her profile it sounds like she is pretty centrist and to the left of most Republicans. I doubt she would appeal to many in Mccain’s “base”, but personally speaking as a ‘bleeding heart dirty liberal’, if we have to run the chance of Mccain being elected, than this is who I would feel safest with behind him. The only flaw I would see if I was Mccain, is having two Senators on the ticket. Of course, it is probably for all these same reasons she won’t be picked, but who knows. It would be pretty neat to see a debate between her and Sebelius(my pick for Obama’s VP). Hillary who? 
But at least as far as Republicans go Snowe seems too good to be true. Can any one from Maine, or anywhere up there really, fight my ignorance and tell me anything I should be wary of with her?
Anyone?
Condi re-stated today that she’s not interested in the job…
If you follow the link, you’ll also see where she had positive things to say about Obama’s race speech.
Awesome double entendre! Bravo!
you did mean that as a double entendre, right?
No, for the millionth time, we conservatives are not racists. If you read the conservative blogs you will read nothing but praise for democracy in India and the benefits of outsourcing to India. It is the leftists who are the nativists and protectionists.
And BTW, nothing but praise for Jindal. In fact, I’d love to see a cite where a reputable conservative had anything bad to say about Jindal.
I think it’s hard to answer questions like this because foreign policy is a team effort and it’s impossible to know if things were accomplished because of, or in spite of, one particular player. So, for instance, even though the entire world hates the US - I could probably find a million cites for that on SDMB alone - somehow Germany and France have elected governments that are significantly more pro-US than their predecessors. And democracy keeps growing throughout the world. Did Condi do that? I don’t know. Who do you give credit to?
She’s managed to come across as the least incompetent person in the Bush administration.
Certainly not all conservatives are racist. But let’s not kid ourselves - some conversatives are indeed racist. And the majority of racists are conservative.
Really? She’s been involved with national security and foreign policy - two of the leading areas where the Bush administration has failed. I’d say many people would put here among the top five members of the Bush administration in terms of incompetence.
I didn’t say she was the least incompetent, I said she has the perception of being the least incompetent. You can find dozens of mainstream media editorials questioning the intelligence or capabilities of every single other high profile member of the Bush administration. Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Cheney, Bush himself… but criticism of Rice has been curiously low key by comparison. Perhaps following Colin “Of course there a WMDs in Iraq” Powell gives her an unfair advantage. Of course, she’s also never been asked to do anything particularly controversial. There also hasn’t been a big expectation of success by anyone. The job of selling the Bush foreign policy to other countries has to have the same success potential as selling turds.
Really? Do we get to count all the left-wing anti-semites? And if you haven’t noticed, the Democratically party is splitting along racial lines. There’s all kinds of talk of the Democrats in the big states being uncomfortable about his race - blue collar workers, primarily.
I keep hearing how Republicans would never elect a black leader. And then I look at the huge popularity Colin Powell had among Republicans. Everyone assumed that the nomination would be his in a walk if he ran against Bush in 2000. Condi Rice has one of the highest favorable ratings of any Republican, and the movements to draft her for President and Vice President are coming from the right. Bobby Jindal is a rising star. A Republican named the first black justice to the Supreme Court. Several Republican women have run for president. And of course, the current President appointed the first black female to be Secretary of State.
Republicans would LOVE to find a good, charismatic conservative black person who could go toe-to-toe with Obama. Someone with his charisma, but more economically conservative. They’d love to find a Margaret Thatcher.
I think your view of the Republican party is about 30 years out of date.
Did anyone else just feel a chill?
So many problems here. For one thing, I never said anything about the Republican party - I was talking about conservatives. The two are not synonymous.
Second, I explicitly said I was not talking about conservatives as a group. Most conservatives are not racist or at least are no more racist than average. But I stand by my previous statement - the people who are racist in this country are far more likely to by conservatives than liberals.
Third, we’re back to the issue of tokenism. Nobody’s disputing there are some black conservatives. But they are very few and far between. Conservatives showcase them in an effort to divert attention from the fact that the majority of black people in this country are not conservatives.
Fourth, equating being anti-Israel with being anti-semitic is a smokescreen. Would you say that everyone who is pro-Israel is by default anti-Muslim? This is an issue of politics not religious tolerance.
Fifth, while it doesn’t really have a lot to do with this topic, I will repeat what I’ve said in the past. For all his faults, I don’t believe George Bush harbors any racial prejudices. He’s shown that he personally doesn’t care about a person’s race.
Sixth (and finally), here’s an interesting observation. I was talking about black people. Your post talks about blacks and women and anti-semitism and Bobby Jindal. Magellon, in a previous response to a post I made about black people, gave a list that included black people and women and hispanics and Muslims and Asians. Both of you therefore seemed to have divided people into two groups; white Christian men and “minorities” which apparently is everyone who isn’t a white Christian man.