Excuse me if this topic has already been posted because I rarely frequent the D&D boards and this topic aroused my interest on the Jay Leno show tonight. I think this is a fantastic idea and would easily guarantee Republican victory in this coming election if Rice becomes GW's running mate. This would sway so many woman and African American votes that the Republicans would be fools not to do it. While this would be a shrewd move for the Republican party this would also be huge step for African Americans and women in America. And I for one thinks Rice is just the right person to break this barrier. She is extremely intelligent and doesn't back down from anyone. What do you think? (liberals please be gentle ) Condolezza for Vice-President? NCM Online, Paolo Pontoniere, May 17, 2002 European media began this week to speculate about the next campaign for the US presidency. Particularly in Britain and in Italy, newspapers and magazines reported on the possibility of Condolezza Rice reincarnating as a vice presidential candidate in 2004. European reporters considered this a potentially brilliant political move, which, in their opinion, could easily carry President Bush to re-election. According to European observers, Rice is the quintessential product of the American Dream, and of the African-American civil rights movement. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, during segregationist times to a Presbyterian pastor, she was raised with the belief that if one stays in school, works hard, and trusts in God one can achieve anything. She speaks four languages, is an accomplished pianist, and a strong athlete. Driven to excellence in everything she did, she devoted herself to foreign policy when she concluded that she would never become a world renowned musician-- though recently she performed with great ease with cellist Yo-Yo Ma--or a sports champion, though during her years as professor and provost at Stanford University, she was known to train with the best athletes. Rice was originally called to the White House from Stanford University--where at the time she was teaching-by then-President George H. Bush to advise him on the then-Soviet Union. After that stint, she returned to Stanford as the youngest provost in the university's history. Many credit Rice with having spurred Stanford University to educational excellence and with having contributed to diversifying its faculty and student body. Named after a very smooth musical movement, con dolcezza, Rice, since her return to the White House with George W. Bush, has emerged as the most hawkish member of the cabinet and has become the most influential National Security Adviser since Henry Kissinger. Analysts credit her with having crafted US policy on Russia, the Balkans, and Israel, and having developed the "Axis of Evil" concept expounded by President Bush in one of his recent speeches. Assuming that Dick Cheney will not run again in 2004, either for health reasons or because he may be scapegoated for the Enron fiasco, Condoleezza Rice would be the first African-American and the second woman-Italian-American Geraldine Ferraro was the first-to run on a major party's presidential ticket. Europeans believe that, unlike Ferraro, or even Elizabeth Dole who sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1999, Rice could really grab the support of women and African-American voters for Bush. Rice as a candidate would no doubt steal the thunder away from any other conventional ticket and would challenge popular wisdom which has held that the first woman or African-American in the White House would have been a Democrat. While clearly hawkish when it comes to foreign policy, Rice by her own admission is "a pro-choice evangelical," with libertarian views on other issues, too. While alienating the Christian right, and the more conservative Republican base, this stance would almost win her at least part of the feminist vote. In addition, European analysts point out that the White House Project, a women's advocacy group that wants to get a woman in the White House by 2008, has revealed that Elizabeth Dole during her failed candidacy attracted the vote of women who didn't even share her political point of view. However, as the European journalists point out, views on abortion have never determined who wins in a US presidential election. A Condoleezza Rice candidacy would almost certainly electrify the black vote. In such a campaign, African-Americans might well see an occasion to seize history and to situate one of their own in a pole position for the presidency in 2008. Two years is a lifetime in politics, however, and Europeans caution that the Democrats may have a few tricks up their sleeve too--for example, a Gore-Clinton ticket. The allure of having Hilary run for vice president would almost certainly neutralize some of Rice's potential. Hilary Clinton has a good standing with African-Americans and with women voters. In addition, her presence on a presidential ticket would allow Democrats to bank on the magic of a past administration that brought America eight years of unparalleled prosperity. http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=271
I'm all for it. She can't debate, she doesn't have command presence, and she would certainly get out the black vote for Dems... not to mention get a lot of southern "christian" rightists to stay home. Bush/Rice in 2004! Rove would be nuts to let this happen, but not so much if this stays out there... it's sort of like the opposite of the Hillary candidacy... attractive to some people in the idea, dismissed immediately by others, and of no great concern to the majority.
Condoleeza Rice wouldn't withstand the scrutiny of being the VP nominee....if the Dems had the guts to call her on her B.S. ("we never dreamed terrorists would use planes as bombs"; "then how do you explain these CIA memos that your office received...?") I'm all for a black and/or woman to make it to the top spot, or VP, but Condi isn't the one.
He doesn't need to - there's a clause in the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act that makes Cheney's vice-presidency a permanent position, and also declares Adolf Ashcroft as Supreme Overlord of the Universe. In a related clause, G.W. Bush is permanently assigned the position of Most Eminent Custodial Engineer to the Office of Vice President.
One of my professors that has studied with her told me this little jewel of advice (paraphrasing), "Back when I was in grad school, someone pointed out to me a fellow classmate named condoleeza rice. He said, 'Be careful of that one, she has the highest aspirations of all of us and will do anything to get there, even if it means stepping on those around her.'"
the article is 20 months old? i don't think Gore-Clinton is going to happen this year, but , as i've written several times in other threads, i think Condi's a natural for 2008. hard to see bush jettisoning cheney however, unless he wants to go or has to for health reasons.
I didn't realize how old the article was, but it still has relevance since it was being discussed last night on Leno by a democratic political analyist. Not sure what his name was.
Putting Condi on republican ticket would be a fascinating experiment. Getting the female vote is becoming a bigger and bigger deal. This would also relieve the conscience of the republicans who lean towards the center on social issues. The far right southern baptists and other confederate flag-wavers wouldn't be so hot for it. I think the repubs would gain more centerist voters than they would lose super conservative/racist/sexist voters. If she can handle the scrutiny and debates, it could be a big boon.
This much is certain: Condi Rice would attract more moderate conservatives and undecided voters than Darth Dick.
I think it would be a great idea to have Dr. Rice as the Vice-President. I don't really care for the "woman" and "black" part of who she is but her credentials are damn impressive: Dr. Condoleezza Rice - Biography On December 17, 2000, then President-elect George W. Bush selected Dr. Condoleezza Rice to be his National Security Advisor. She had been a Hoover Senior Fellow and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University before taking an academic leave of absence for a year during which time she conducted research and served as primary foreign policy advisor to the Bush Presidential Campaign. She recently completed a six-year tenure as Stanford's Provost in June 1999, during which she was the institution's chief budget and academic officer. As Provost she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students. While Dr. Rice was instrumental in creating several new and innovative academic programs and initiatives, she also reduced $20 million in base budget costs of the university, balanced the budget in the first year, and reported budget surpluses during the rest of her tenure as Provost. As a professor of political science, Dr. Rice joined the Stanford faculty in 1981 and won two of its highest teaching honors - the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching. Her teaching and research interests included the politics of East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, the comparative study of military institutions, and international security policy. She pursued these specialties in academia and in government service. At Stanford, she was a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control, a Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). She also has written numerous articles on Soviet and East European foreign and defense policy, and has addressed audiences in settings ranging from the U.S. Ambassador's Residence in Moscow to the Commonwealth Club to the 1992 Republican National Convention. From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender - Integrated Training in the Military. She is a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, 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 a Founding Board Member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California and is Vice President of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. Her past board service has encompassed such organizations as 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.
