I think that Condoleezza Rice has a great shot at becoming the next President of the United States.She offers everything the Republicans need.
She’s attractive for a politician. Americans like pretty people.
She apparently has no ideas of her own. At no time during her time at Bush’s side has she ever said anything which resembles an original thought. Nor are there any initiatives or policy directives which appear to have any connection to her.
She's a complete mouthpiece for the GOP braintrust who really run the administration.
She’s “religious”, which will appease the Socialist Right, but she doesn’t preach it, which will appeal to the moderates.
Every statement seems calculated not to offend. She’s someone you wouldn’t mind living next door, and you’d probably make a point never to say anything stronger than “gosh darn” in her company.
As she’s been a foreign policy apparatchik all her life, she can’t get tagged with any problematic domestic policy concerns at all. She's never said a thing. In short, she can’t come off as a classic political Negro who wants to take white peoples’ money and give it to other Negroes.
She’s advocated strong policies favoring killing foreigners. This is very important for a member of an outside caste. History shows that "out" castes generally validate themselves to the inside caste by being good at killing the "in" caste’s enemies. This is why I’ve long felt that the first black president would be a former general. I thought it would be Colin Powell. Condi’s credentials are close enough.
She’s offers the voting public something new, a ‘difference’ as a black woman while still ‘staying the course’ with the ongoing disaster.
Political cartoonists will love her. They will vote for her en masse as a full employment measure.
Rice will be the first non-married president in quite some time. Gossip columnists looking to speculate about her love life will vote for her en masse solely as a full employment measure.
Aryan Nations leaders will see her as proof of the Black-Zionist government conspiracy against all they stand for and will vote for her en masse as a full employment measure.
Unless John Edwards gets a little more fire in the belly, there’s no one on the Democratic side who can counter her edge. Hillary Clinton is the presumed frontrunner, but she’s not providing enough thunder from the left to satisfy the party’s activist wing, who’ll probably run someone against her, and then leave it up to MoveOn.org and the rest of the non-candidate liberal political wing to run the anti-Condi effort. The short primary season favors Clinton, as Dean discovered against Kerry, but the field could be remarkably open in a non-incumbent year.
Joe Biden is also running for the Democratic nomination. Six people will care.
John McCain will run for the Republican nomination. More Democrats who respect his principled stands on some key issues despite his appalling overall voting record will care than Republicans.
If Rice runs or wins, then Barak Obama will run in ’12 to maintain cosmic balance.
Me, I’m spending the time organizing the "Free Ecotopia Movement" to say goodbye to all this foolishness. For anyone else interested, the steering committee next meets Tuesday down at the Harmonic Convergence coffee house. Bring a friend and you get a free caramel mocha latte.
4 comments:
Rice would be the logical person for the Bushists to run. She would have a strong showing in the November elections. The obvious move now would be for Cool-Hand Cheney to resign, and prepare the way for Rice's coronation. I disagree, by the way, that Rice has no views of her own. She does. If anything, she's probably the most millenarian member of the administration. In that sense, and given her credentials and experience over twoo terms - she is the preeminent Bushist in the field.
That said, I sincerely doubt that the Republicans are ready to run Rice. Maybe there would be some rallying around the standard in order to stop McCain. However she won't get through the primaries.
The far right is already alienated from Bush, hence from Rice - whom they rightly see as a Truman Democrats in Republican garb. In any case, Rice is suspect because she's Black and Female - two constituencies that are in perpetual disfavor amongst the Paleos.
McCain owns the Moderates, and by extension, the Business faction. He's done an amazing job of playing the role of "loyal opposition" while participating in the wealth aggrandizement program of our plutocracy. Hence he is aesthetically pleasing to those who "wear their hearts on the Left, and their pocketbooks on the Right." He could lay claim as a unifier since Liberals admire him - all that Vietnam Vet POW stuff - while Conservatives hate Hillary with a psychotic fury.
The only Republican faction that Rice would own outright is the Religious Right, who, by and large, are committed Bushists. She would probably have the Fox/Limbaugh/Coulter/Swift-Boat Crank vote, by dint of her association with Bush. She has a fight on her hands for anyone else.
Of course, who knows? the Bushists could pull off a Diebold on a grand scale.
If Rice makes it through the convention, (which may well be divided - hence interesting for once), then it could become very interesting.
I'm betting, BTW, that Hillary does not make a go of it in 2008. My money is on Gore. I think that he's likely to be the candidate of choice across the board, including both the DLC and MoveOn.org factions. He will be very popular, and could potentially beat McCain...but perhaps not Rice.
In that case, Gore would be running somewhat to the Left of Rice on Iraq and slightly to the Left on the economy. In other words, they would be splitting the difference of a very slight margin between their positions. The Right having no other place to go; Rice's genuine appeal could swing enough moderate Democrats into her column that she will win the day.
With Rice's ascendency, swaths of the old Democratic base will continue their absorption into the Republican machine...thus resurrecting the situation of the 1860's-1930's wherein the Republicans are the Party of Federal Power, while the Democrats withdraw into their diminished regional strongholds.
What this would mean, of course, is a continuing descent down the slide toward a true one party state. In this case, the real debates over the next 50 or so years will be between Party factions and tendencies. Executive power will be wielded along the lines of PRI (Mexico), or the Liberal Democrats (Japan), or, if you will, the Partito Nazionale Fascista (Italy).
I may join you in that Ecotopian Seccessionist Movement.
Well - those are great points and all. But - what has Rice ever done well!? She missed 9/11 as NSA. Lied about Iraq nuke program (aluminum tubes/mushroom clouds). She always looks as if she's a dear caught in the headlights and there doesn't seem to be any real passion there - no charisma.
I hope she runs though - damn good historic stuff in that. Something to tell the grand, er, great grand kids.
Frank,
"Doing something well" has nothing to do with GOP qualifications for President. Fercrissakes, all George W. ever did is wangle authority from the Texas legislature to levy a special tax on Arlington to build a ballpark for his team, which earned him cool millions in profits at the Texas taxpayers expense.
No, a sellable package is all that matters, and I think Rice may be it. Mr. "Usless Eaters" disagrees and makes good points to back it up. I'll have to chew on 'em some and get back.
"Insight magazine, associated with the conservative Washington Times, is reporting that Vice President Dick Cheney is going to "retire" "within a year."
The reason? A "growing rift" between the OVP and the White House, the denouement of which will result in Cheney being "persuaded" to leave. And while the recent shooting incident underscored the growing distance between Cheney and the President -- Bush, it seems, was left out of the loop, along with the rest of the country, with the news -- the core reason is the upcoming trial of his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby:
"'The Libby case is far more lethal than the hunting accident,' another GOP source said. 'If the heat gets too much, Cheney might say his health requires him to leave office. Whatever happens, the president will make sure it's handled delicately.'"
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