http://www.americanprowler.org/article.asp?art_id=2002_3_11_0_55_57
I certainly think Rice would be an excellent running mate for Bush in 2004, if Chaney is not available. What do you think?
Do you really think the GOP will have a number two that’s pro-choice?
Good point. She’s a long shot, in any event. Given the advanced state of medicine, I expect Chaney to run again in 2004, despite his heart condition.
However, day-dreaming about an ideal scenario…
If Bush chooses her, the pubbies would have to go along with him, despite her being pro-choice. They would grumble, but they’d nominate her.
Once she were elected VP, she’d be the automatic front-runner for the 2008 Presidential nomination. Then, she could become the first woman President and first Black President.
Or, Bush might eat another pretzel…
With all due respect to Rice and her abilities in her current job, but do you really think the Republican Party will front a ticket with a woman, let alone a black woman, any time soon?
Then add a kicker - will the electorate vote in a Republican ticket with a woman, let alone a black woman, on the ballot?
Thought so.
Actually, Duckster, yes and yes.
I believe the Republicans, just as the Democrats, would do anything at all if it would gain more votes than it lost. And I believe that selecting Condy Rice as a VP candidate would do that.
True. Actually I think a large % of pubbies as you say wouldn’t grumble. Only the eternal cranks.
Interesting.
You know december, sometimes I want to strangle you, but this, this pays it all back. Priceless. Truly priceless. I submit that all of us december critics give him a grace period on his wierd statements.
I’m still laughing.
I actually believe that if Cheney steps down, the top two front runners for the job would be Tom Ridge and Condoleeza Rice. And Ridge is rapidly building up enough negatives to make him unlikely.
From all accounts, Rice gets along extremely well with Bush, and he trusts her implicitly. Trust goes a long, long way with Bush. She’s well spoken, extremely well qualified, and positioned in the perfect spot to avoid having her reputation tarnished during the administration.
As for Republicans going along, let me tell you that most of them LOVE her. There have already been a number of ‘Draft Condoleeza’ articles written in the mainstream conservative press. Her pro-choice views will only be seen as a minor liability, and she has three big pluses: She would help close the gender gap, she would attract the black vote (something Bush wants dearly, because he sees himself as a pro-civil rights kinda guy and yet only got 10% of the black vote in the last election). And finally, it would put the screws to Hillary by removing her chance to be the first woman President. Among some conservatives, that alone would be enough to vote for Condoleeza.
I’ve got a question. Why do liberals think that every Republican is a racist, anti-choice, woman hater?
I’m a Republican and I judge people based on who they are and what they believe. I am also pro-choice[#1]. I don’t care what a persons sex-skin color-religon-heratage is. I care about what they believe. I’d vote for Powell or Rice in a heart beat. Not because they are black but because they think the same way I do for the most part. I wouldn’t vote for Jesse Jackson or Senator Helms because I disagree with them.
Slee
#1. I believe that somewhere between conception and birth a few cells becomes a human. I believe that a woman has a right to remove those cells before they become a human. I don’t know where to draw that line. I think anything later than 6 months is wrong. I also believe that the right choice is to make adoption and birth control available so that we never have to think about abortion.
I have no idea why (or even whether) liberals think that every Republican is a racist, anti-choice, woman hater.
I am not really a liberal, but I do not hold those views.
OTOH, I do note that every Republican Presidential platform since 1976 has included planks (never objected to by the nominees) and calling for a Constitutional Amendment to reverse Roe v Wade, and opposing the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (before it died) and any efforts toward Affirmative Action.
Should one assume that the platform of the Presidential nominee reflects the devoted opinions of every single member of the Republican party? Of course not. However, standing on the sidelines, I have never even seen a good old-fashioned Democrat-style donneybrook to challenge those planks, while I have seen a lot of rhetoric from Roberston, Buchanan, Falwell, Wildmon, and others demanding adherence to those goals. I have also seen several Republican candidates (most notably George H W Bush) publicly change their positions on those issues in order to make themselves more palatable to the Religious Right.
I have, further, seen the Republicans put forth a candidate for the Supreme Court who has publicly spoken against many issues perceived as supporting racial equality and sexual equality and I have then seen the Republican party put forth a black candidate for the Supreme Court who has spoken out against Affirmative Action and “quotas” while accepting the Affirmative Action job of “conservative” black Justice.
Again, this is mostly just politics and not a cause for direct censure of either the persons involved or the causes espoused.
However, if you object to being tarred with that brush, perhaps you and your like-minded Republicans should stand up and publicly repudiate those goals.
As long as the (perceived) anti-woman planks and (perceived) anti-equality planks are placed into the Republican platform every four years with no discernible dissent, then you get to live with the perception that you allowed the Religious Right to dictate to your party.
That’s all correct, but I think you are missing a rather big sea change that occured after Sept. 11. For one thing, the religious right always held disproportionate power over the Republican party because of its ability to mobilize large groups of people into voting blocs, because it had a lot of power in a number of important ‘swing’ states, and also because of its intense grassroots efforts for or against candidates and large amounts of funding to candidates it approved of.
The difference now is that thanks to the moronic comments of Falwell and Robertson, the Religious Right has lost a whole bunch of political capital, and Republicans have fallen all over themselves in the last sevon months to attempt to distance themselves from them. And second, the fact that we’re at war changes the whole political equation. Republicans are much less likely to care about pro-choice views today than they were before Sept. 11.
I think you’re seeing more of a return to the ‘old’ Republican party epitomized by Ronald Reagan. That was the hard-line, anti-communist, military hawkish party. Only now, the hawkishness is aimed at the war on terror. Candidates who are stong on the military have seen their stock go through the roof, and those that are seen as weak are losing support even if they are perfect Republicans in other respects. The same split is happening in the Democratic party, although perhaps not to the same degree.
Thus, conservatives are becoming skeptical of people like Tom Ridge, even though their ‘conservative’ credentials are impeccable, because they are seen as somewhat ineffective wartime leaders. And Colin Powell is losing political capital because conservatives see him as being wobbly on the war.
Condoleeza Rice has impeccable credentials on the war, and is firmly in the ‘hawk’ camp in the Bush White House. That alone has earned her a ton of respect and goodwill amongst Republicans who are much more likely to be willing to overlook her pro-choice views today than they were before Sept. 11.
And while I don’t have the stats to offer to back this up, it’s my gut feeling that abortion has begun to fade substantially as an important issue to mainstream Republicans. Perhaps their views have moderated, or they’ve given up the fight, or they just aren’t thinking about it because other issues have stolen the spotlight.
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I don’t know how serious of a problem this is for him. He is, after all, Secretary of State. He’s supposed to be more “diplomatic” than Rumsfeld or Rice. That’s his job.
I’d be much more comfortable seeing Powell as VP of the U.S. than Rice. Powell has much more real-world experience. I was originally somewhat concerned about Powell as a choice for Secretary of State given his exclusively military background. However, he’s done an outstanding job. It’s quite possible that given the events of 9/11, he was the best possible choice for Secretary of State, bar none.
The problem is that Powell may not want to be VP. He has expressely disavowed interest in the VP nomination in the past. Appearently, he is leary of the political campaigning that such a nomination would require.
He may have more experience (is there anyone who could possibly have more than Powell?), but Rice isn’t far behind. She has been serving in the White House off and on since the Reagan administration. She is one of the world’s foremost experts on Russia, and had an absolutely impeccable record in the first Bush administration.
For those who aren’t familiar with her record, she has a Ph.D in political science and was professor and Provost at Stanford university. She was the director of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and was a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the first Bush administration.
In 1986 during the Reagan administration she was an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
As well as her original earned Ph.D, she has three honorary Ph.D’s. She is also the author of at least four books on Soviet and eastern politics, and was a senior fellow for the Hoover institure.
She has sat on the board of directors for Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco, Chevron, Charles Schwab, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors.
She is one of the most qualified people to ever serve in a White House, if you ask me.
Trust me, the Republicans would LOVE to put her up against Hillary Clinton in 2008. Condoleeza’s record makes Hillary’s look pretty bad, and if she also had four years as Veep and war experience, it wouldn’t even be a contest.
The wildcard is her social life. As far as I can tell, she has never been married, and from what I have heard has never even been seen on a date. I couldn’t care less about that but it’s just the kind of thing that demogogues on both sides of the aisle might try to play up into a ‘lesbian’ thing.
But think of it - A black, lesbian female running for president, as a REPUBLICAN. Get the popcorn, we got ourselves a SHOW! Just watching Republicans and Democrats twist and turn trying to deal with that would be worth almost anything.
I know that Rice has impressive credentials. However, she’s always been an advisor and an academic. She lacks the real world you’re-on-the-spot-make-a-decision-manage-the-problem experience that Powell has. Maybe she’d be great at it, but no one really knows. She’s also a foreign policy wonk. We don’t have any idea about her thoughts or abilities with respect to U.S. domestic issues. If Bush thinks making her his running mate might actually be in the cards, he needs to move her to a more political position as soon as possible.
In any case, if Powell decides he wants to run for VP in 2004, it’s going to be his for the asking. Certainly, he’s going to come out on top in any confrontation with Rice. In fact, I’d put my money on him if he decided he wanted to push Cheney aside. As I said, though, he doesn’t seem to be interested. Perhaps he has a point. “I can be Secretary of State without doing any political campaigning and fly around the world doing important stuff and hobnobing with world leaders or I can run for VP, spend at least a year campaigning and then spend the next four years hiding in a bunker when I’m not going to funerals of ex-world leaders. Hmmm. What to do, what to do . . .”
I don’t know about her not having ‘practical’ experience… From the usinfo.gov web site, we learn this:
That’s pretty impressive, and has to count as ‘practical’ experience. Besides which, by the time she runs for office she’ll have had four or eight years as National Security Advisor and possibly Vice President.
And if she doesn’t make it as VP, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her stepping into Powell’s or Rumsfeld’s shoes. Neither of them strike me as the career politician types, and I could see them retiring before a second Bush term is over. Especially Rumsfeld, who is already in his 70’s. But she’d be more qualified to be Secretary of State. I mean, her career to date almost looks like a tailor-made apprenticeship for SoS.
If she does run in 2008, the ‘experience’ issue will be her strength, not her liability.
As you might tell, I’m a fan.
Hey it could be Powell/Rice for 2008!! Wouldn’t that shut up Jesse Jackson? But Powell does not want to campaign for Pres, or he would be President by now. So it might be Pataki of Giuliani along with Rice, most likely Pataki.
I’ll have to disagree with you here. It’s been my impression that Bush has sided with Rice and Rumsfeld more than Colin Powell. For example, Powell wanted POW status for the Guantanimo inmates, Bush went against his recommendation. I seem to recall Powell being none-to-happy with the President’s “axis of evil” speech. I wouldn’t be surprised if Powell is one of the cabinet secretaries to leave should Bush win re-election in 2004.
However, I could be wrong. I don’t follow politics as much as many people.
In any event, I don’t see Rice’s pro-choice beliefs as a problem. She could do what a lot of other Republicans do should this become a deal-breaker: Declare that she is opposed to abortion, paying lip-service to the religious right, but not actually do anything about it.
Hmmm, a pro-choice Republican candidate who apparently couldn’t care less about the Christian Coalition’s agenda. Why, it would be almost as if the Republican Party was moving into the mainstream of American thought!
V.P.? Sure, the R’s are pretty much stuck with whoever the presidential nomineee selects. President? It’ll never happen. No way, no how, no form. I confidently predict that the Republican Party will not nominate a pro-choice candidate for President at anytime within the next two decades, and probably longer than that. That’s like expecting the Democrats to nominate a candidate who plans to privatize social security.
Sam Stone writes:
Whoa. What a surrealistic idea – Condoleeza Rice vs. Hillary Clinton.
Like something out of Celebrity Deathmatch.
Still, it might actually re-instill a little of my long-lost faith in the American democratic process…
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I’ve got another few questions for you, my friend:
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Why do so many self-described Republicans/conservatives think everyone else is a “liberal”?
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Why do so many think that every “liberal” has the same views?
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Why do so many think that these hypothetical “liberals” in return think that “every Republican” (your words) thinks in exactly the same way?
When you’ve cleared away the simplistic bashing mindset, we can discuss this in more depth. Meanwhile, tomndebb has described very well what the Republican party has actually stood for in practice, regardless of rhetoric, in recent years. Even taking your question at face value, the answer might be that actions speak louder than words.
Re Rice, the choice would have to not look like tokenism, and that might be hard. If you haven’t heard anything bad about her, perhaps the appropriate questions haven’t been asked by the “journalists” you’re trusting. Despite her refreshingly-moderate personal views on some points, she’s defined as a neo-Cold-Warrior, with the same belligerent sabre-rattling rogue-nation attitudes espoused by so many of the Republican right’s leadership, almost all of whom ducked military service themselves.
The same can be said of almost any prospective candidate - a lot of them look good until you look closely. That doesn’t happen in the mass media until after they become candidates, and every irrelevant little thing the reporters (who, after all, are paid to come up with stuff, or think they are) can come up with gets overblown.
That process leads to the common, useless, irresponsible “they’re all crooks” attitude that even makes its way onto this board rather frequently - along with “my own country’s politicians are all idiots, I’m not responsible enough to participate in my own country’s politics, so I’ll bloviate about somebody else’s instead without the chore of having to take responsibility.”
Let’s do our own thinking, guys, not count on partisan journalists. Let’s support those candidates in our own countries who we expect will do what we most want done in our own countries.
When was the last time the republican party actually nominated a presidential candidate who did care about the Christian Coalition’s agenda? As a moderate democrat who has rarely voted republican, I find it strange that I am “defending” them.
Sure, you can be a senator in a southern state, or any number of local candidates and actually actively promote the christian coalion’s causes, but you can’t seriously expect to win the republican nomination for president with that agenda.
The republican party is not that stupid. Sure, they’ll throw them a few bones here and there to keep them in line, they’ll put a few anti-abortion lines into the party platform, but who was the last presidential candidate who really took this seriously? Reagan was a master at manipulating the fundamentalist right wing, but even he was smart enough to avoid the issue altogether.
And a pro-choice republican stupid enough to alienate the right-wing base by not telling them what they want to hear is, logically, too stupid to ever have a chance at gaining the nomination. All serious republican candidates, no matter their personal opionions on abortion, have been smart enough to not make the abortion hill they are going to die on. There are issues more important to them.