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Thursday, February 24, 2005
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Poster Ruthlessly Stolen From White House. Org
CHENEY, CONDI AND HILLARY: AN INTERESTING RACE THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN
The Ace of Spades HQ reported a fascinating rumor a couple of days ago. The rumor is that Vice President Dick Cheney will resign his office - citing health issues - clearing the way for President Bush to appoint Secretary of State Condolezza Rice to the office. As an incumbent vice president she will become the presumptive Republican nominee in 2008.
It is a neat a theory, but I'm afraid that that's pretty much all it is. Firstly, Cheney isn't going anywhere. If he ever would have, it would've been last summer. As things currently stand, he'll have to be dragged out the West Wing by his heels on January 20, 2009. Te President likes having Cheney around and Cheney knows that he'll never again have this kind of power and influence.
Of course, I can't rule out the possibility that the Vice President has a massive coronary and dies in office. Then the scenario might play out, but I wouldn't count on it otherwise.
Then there's the issue of Rice's candidacy itself. During the first term, I had developed a scenario where she could run for president. In this, she would have resigned as National Security Adviser after last year's election and declared her intention to run for governor of California. If she won in California, it would have been a romp to the nomination. If there is a Republican who can clearly win its electoral votes, close states like Florida no longer matter. Adding California to the current Republican electoral vote count would serve to completely destroy the Democratic Party. With a safe California base, there is no mathematical way the Republicans can lose.
But there was that small Recall election in 2003. Perhaps you've heard about it.
The election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor ruined the state for all other Republicans, including Rice. Governor Schwarzenegger currently has approval ratings in the high sixties, unheard of for a California Republican. If Arnold seeks another term in 2006, he will be unstoppable. Arnold could step aside for Rice next year, knowing that it would make him a king maker in the next presidential election, but I'm not sure that his....healthy ego would allow that.
So long as Senator Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president - which she will remain unless she either loses re-election in New York next year, joins the Shining Path or is exposed to be a man - the Republicans will look for the perfect silver bullet candidate to use against her. As I write this, Secretary Rice is -in their judgment- it. Imagine the delimma the Democrats would face in dealing with the first serious black woman to seek the presidency.
Both Condi and Hillary have their problems. Secretary Rice, as Ace has pointed out, has never run for office before. No one knows what her positions on virtually anything are. The right wing of the Republican Party are demonstrably stupid enough to throw someone like Senator Rick Santorum in the fray to dirty Rice up in the primaries. In fact, there might be a conservative "ABC" (Anybody But Condi) movement at the convention to stop her if she proves to be too pro-choice or affirmative action friendly.
We can safely rule out Secretary Rice running from the cabinet. The last person to run from the cabinet was Henry Wallace in 1940, who ran for vice president while he was Secretary of Agriculture. The last person to successfully run for president from the cabinet was Herbert Hoover, who ran as Secretary of Commerce. That was in 1928.
So far as I'm aware, no sitting Secretary of State has ever run for president. Were Rice to do so in this atmosphere, she would surely be accused of politicizing foreign policy. That tactic could very likely be effective because it would probably be true. Whatever a Secretary of State / candidate did in the Middle East, it would be seen as a ploy to obtain either New York's Jewish vote or Michigan's Muslim vote. Is she ran for president as a sitting secretary, American foreign policy would effectively be frozen for 18 months.
Without the vice presidency or the governorship, I think we can pretty safely bet that Rice won't run. She could resign and run as a private citizen, as Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan did. But they had all held elective office before. In Nixon's case, he had already been on a national ballot three times and on California ballots four times.
Barring something truely dramatic happening, Condolezza Rice is effectively frozen out for 2008.
This brings us to Senator Clinton. There is a very interesting article in last week's issue of New York magazine by Jennifer Senior. The article, which quotes some very senior Democrats by name, concedes that the senator is unstoppable for the '08 nomination should she seek it.
Then there's the issue of a general election. That's where Senator Clinton faces serious problems. Senior has developed a theory where Hillary wins Arkansas, Florida and New Mexico and therefore becomes president. To be fair, Senior seems to be very weary of this in her article. Those states were all very close and went Republican last year. There are even more states that were close and went for Kerry. These include New Jersey, Minnesota and Oregon. Just as she might pick up some Republican states, she is just as likely to lose some Democratic ones. For example, if she loses New Jersey, the election is over.
And it shouldn't be forgotten that Hillary is every bit the electoral neophyte that Secretary Rice is. Some will point to her 13 point spread in the 2000 senate election. This is a bad example. The then First Lady was only polling a couple of points ahead of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani , a cancer patient going through a divorce, forced to live with a homosexual couple and a New York Republican to boot. This is to say nothing about Giuliani's cosmically high negative ratings with New York's considerable black community. With all of that, Hillary was only up by about 3 points, as I remember it.
When Giuliani dropped out, Congressman Rick Lazio stepped in. Lazio entered the race less than five months before election day, had no money and name recognition slightly lower than mine. He faced the best-funded Democrat in the country and the most famous woman in the world. A woman who, by the way, had the most effective White House political operation in history working on her behalf.
Given all of that, Hillary should have won by 30 points instead of 13. If Senator Clinton is faced with a serious challenger for re-election next year, its not inconceivable that she could lose. Its not likely, but it is, by no means, outside the realm of possibility. Should she lose a senate seat in one of the country's most liberal states, there is NO hope for another President Clinton.
Then there is the issue of her polarizing nature. Just as President Bush raised just as much money for his opposition as he did for himself, so does Hillary Clinton. Even as First Lady, Senator Clinton was a gold mine for Republican direct mail fund raising. In fact, using her image probably raised more money for Republicans as it did for Democrats. And direct mail is where the real money in politics comes from, particularly in the age of McCain / Feingold campaign finance reforce. Another candidate named Clinton on the ballot is also probably worth at least three dozen Republican 527's on top of the money the RNC could raise.
It is my firm belief that Senator Kerry only did as well as he did because President Bush is such a polarizing figure. In 2008, his name will not be on the ballot. If Senator Clinton's is, then the Democrats will have ownership of the polarizing name. Add this to the geographic advantage that the Republicans already enjoy, and she loses. If the Republicans nominate someone like Senator John McCain, Rudy Giuliani or Secretary Rice, she loses in a blow out.
If, and only if, the Republicans nominate someone like Senators Frist or Santorum, does Senator Clinton have ANY chance of becoming president.
The next election is entirely in the Republicans court. Should she decide to seek it, Senator Clinton owns the Democratic nomination. But if the Republicans decide to make their primary another exercise in "holier than thou" on issues like abortion, gay marriage and affirmative action, they'll hand her the keys to White House. If, instead, they do the sensible thing and nominate one of the Republicans I noted above, they'll be good for a twelve to sixteen year run in the executive branch and annihilate the Democratic Party once and for all.
Of course, this is all predicated on President Bush's economic policies not turning America into Uganda with SUVs. If that happens, it'll be the Republicans who get destroyed forever.
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