Web Letters: Vice President Rice?

There isn't a black person more qualified to be President of the United States: Dr. Condoleezza Rice for VP.

Daniel Lozier

Pasadena, CA

I think that it would be the best thing for Senator McCain. Rice would be wonderful!

Pris Hintzman

Dana Point, CA

To set the record straight in the beginning, I am a white, middle-aged male born and raised in the South. East Tennessee is my home. My concern is that we seek out those potential leaders who would be the best and help this nation if elected to the highest offices. My current preference for Senator John McCain's running mate as his Vice Presidential candidate is Dr Condoleezza Rice. In fact, I only wish we could have the very best ticket possible which would have been for President of the United States: Dr. Rice. For Vice President: Senator John McCain.

As for me I would not select a candidate because of her/his gender, or because of her/his race, or because she/he may be from my part of the country or his/her religion. What really matters is the person’s ability, his/her commitment to our country, his/her morality and the person’s views as to what is actually best for our nation. On this basis alone I must select Dr. Condoleezza Rice as the best candidate at present for the presidency or vice presidency. I realize my section of the country has been given a “bad rap” for being biased, but the truth is, most of the white males I know in the South have expressed their wishes for Dr. Rice to be our country’s next President and, since it is too late for her to win that nomination, they would like to see her elected to the VP office.

H.L. Gray

Chattanooga, TN

From what I read on the board, the idea of Dr. Condoleeza Rice as a running mate for John McCain has the Dems running scared. I love it and and I think she'd be great. I'd like for any serious Democrat to relate for us exactly what experience Mr. Obama has that would justify his serving as President of the United States. I do not mean, charisma, or any other "characteristic" but actual, tangible, accomplishments on his part and his part alone. There are none. The very idea that anyone would vote for someone who generally votes "present" on serious issues, and who does not share his true beliefs or ideals for our nation, on the campaign trail, is scary and reeks of ignorance.

I'm still waiting for Obama to tell his followers what he actually means by the generic positive, rhetoric he so eloquently delivers. Alas, they are blind sheep being led to the slaughter and it is very sad. Michelle Obama also needs to speak to the nation and correct and/or explain the notion that this is the first time she's ever been proud of her country. Even Dem strategists are waiting for an apology for that one. The citizens of our country and our soldiers deserve an apology.

McCain/Rice or McCain/Anyone in '08!

C.W. Goad

Crossville, TN

McCain\Rice = Bush III. If the Dems can't get with that they deserve to lose...

Michael McKinlay

Hercules, CA

First, Dr. Rice is pro-choice, not sure that would go over well with the conservative base. Second, she is an African-American and a woman. Finally, she is unmarried, not exactly something conservatives like, and there are several reports that she is a closeted lesbian. I bet a lot of Southern conservatives would stay home on election night if Rice were McCain's running mate. Now, if I had faith in Democrats to run a real campaign I would be happy to see Dr. Rice on the ticket with McCain, but we all know the Democrats are too naïve to actually exploit these issues if she were McCain's running mate.

Shakir Currimbhoy

Minneapolis, MN

This Pulitzer Prize-losing author is a loser again. First, the Republican Convention isn't until early September this year. That means whomever fills the VP nomination spot will have only two months to get his/her message out. Secondly, Condi=Bush, Bush and more Bush. Hasn't Mr. von Hoffman heard that the American people want change? Frankly, neither McCain nor Condi will be viewed as representing change. Such a ticket will be dead in the water.

J. Goulding

Brodheadsville, PA

Von Hoffman seems to be thinking of the Condoleeza Rice circa early 2001, when she was viewed as an articulate, scholarly professional who brought gravitas to Bush's inner circle. Alas, since that time she has been revealed as ineffective, easily dominated by the Cheney/Rumsfeld neocon crowd and one of the principal architects of perhaps the most disastrous foreign policy in US history.

Rice's ability to speak in front of a microphone will not protect her from the cold, hard facts about the Administration's profound failures in Iraq, and in its generally criminal conduct of the so called global war on terror. She's a female version of an empty suit, and I think von Hoffman is not giving the American electorate enough credit for being able to see this.

Robert C. Carmody

Manhasset, NY

If Republicans are that dense to think that the democratic electorate won't see through this absurd ruse, then by all means, add Condi to the ticket. We'll have our first token VP candidate.

Jasmine Bryant

Potomac, MD

I agree with all of the writers here who say von Hoffman is way off base. It would be easy to tie Bush's wife Condi to all the lies that led us into this intolerable war, and all the lies, half-truths and obscurations she's made to Congress and the American people. She would be a huge weight around McCain's leathery old neck and sink him to the bottom of the scum pond where they both belong!

Very clueless article, Nick!

Carl Muecke

Arcata, CA

I seriously doubt that Condi would help anyone's ticket, except among the most ignorant. She is one of the architects of lies that sold the illegal war, and everyone knows it. She'll be up for perjury in Congress soon. That being a black female should give her anti-Hillary or Obama cred is a shallow calculation. More important is the Chevron oil tanker named The Condoleeza Rice.

Stephen Miller

New York, NY

LOL!! LOL! How absurd that a women, with no husband and no children could be expected to bring in the "traditional families" vote!

How utterly absurd to think, when 63 per cent of Americans believe the war was brought to us by a series of lies, that anybody who touched it in any way could be anything but a major liability to the Republican ticket.

How absurd that using a person's race or gender just for the sake of race and gender would add enough "gravitas" to a Republican ticket to offset the political strenghts of Clinton or Obama.

How old news and how typically Republican!

Stuart Wyman-Cahall

Las Vegas, NV

I'm not sure whether Mr. von Hoffman is trying out his writing skills in order to gain employment in stand-up comedy, but this article should serve well on his résumé for a job in that field.

There's so much...uhh, BS in this article, it's hard to know where to start, so I'll pick just one quote: "Anyone who has seen her in action testifying in front of a hostile House or Senate committee knows that she will be able to wipe up the floor with a plodding, ordinary pol of a Democratic vice-presidential candidate. "

Uhh, are you referring to the same Rice who testified in front of the 9/11 Commission back in April of 2004? Because if you are, then you either need to read a transcript or listen to her testimony. Rice excelled at obfuscation; at being ambiguous and, IMO, outright lying. When those tactics didn't work, she would talk aimlessly, about nothing, until the commission member's time was up.

She has been accused of being outright incompetent and has reinforced that belief by constantly mismanaging anything she comes in contact with.

Hmm, come to think of it, a mendacious, incompetent political hack would fit well on McCain's ticket. It would continue the last seven years of the Bush/Cheney junta and, for die-hard Republicans, that's a dream.

Greg Bacon

Ava, MO

Presidential Daily Briefing, August 2001: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S." According to Ms. Rice, the above PDB was merely "historical" and thus she ignored it.

Rice went shoe shopping while Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans. She is not popular among African-Americans.

The State Department is losing diplomats at an unprecedented rate.

The US Embassy in Baghdad has cost over a billion dollars and because of corruption and construction errors is still uninhabitable.

There are literally hundreds of pictures of Rice looking with rapt adoration at George W. Bush.

America's image in the world is the worst it has ever been, having plummeted during Rice's tenure.

Oh, please, please let McCain pick Rice as his running mate!

Pat Green

Asheville, NC

With due respect to Nick von Hoffman, whose point of view is often very trenchant, this time he's blind as a bat. Condi Rice would do for McCain what William Miller (who?) did for Barry Goldwater in 1964... zip, nada, goose eggs. I get the feeling from reading this puff piece about Rice that even The Nation is desperate to stir the pot on the GOP side, given the foregone conclusion of McCain's nomination, and his media temperature only a few degrees above "frozen solid." A captivating orator he's not.

Joe Scarborough, as knowledgeable as anyone in the sensationalist MSM about the current conservative GOP mindset, has already said publicly that McCain is headed for a Goldwater sequel, a loss of landslide proportions largely due to McCain-hating concervatives staying home and moderate Republicans and independents flocking to Obama. Whether you accept Scarborough's take or not, the fact is there's already a formidable gap of several million voters coming out for Democratic primaries vs. GOP contests.

Condi Rice, with her busload of baggage after seven years as lead sycophant and #1 media prevaricator-apologist for the Bush debacle; her 1950s ivory-tower, gawky, terminally dull persona (ice skating and concert piano? ...yawn); her crimes and misdemeanors regarding 9/11; her incompetence as National Security Adviser; her complicity in selling the war;, and her Claude Rains imitation of the Invisible Secretary of State--all these "qualifications" will help not to lift McCain but to bury him.

Although most voters don't know it, they're responding to a dramatic change in the American zeitgeist, defined as the intellectual, moral and cultural climate of an era, the prevailing mood and expectations, if you will, of the American people. That's why Obama's core message of a break with the past, away from old school divisive politics, is resonating so strongly across all demographics, and he's currently cleaning Hillary's clock in primaries all over the place. If he wins Texas and/or Ohio, it could be all over for Billary.

Rice is Bush in a dress. Hillary is Bush in a pantsuit. McCain is a too-familiar, cadaverous version of Bush (notwithstanding his POW heroism, that's worn a bit thin after thirty years in politics); he's (slightly) more articulate but no less a fascist. If von Hoffman thinks Condi Rice is somehow going to enliven his ticket outside Kansas, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, I'd like a toke of what he's been smokin'.

Americans are in a mood, a very intense, fed up mood. They want change, someone new! It's going to be Barack. If somehow I'm wrong, and we end up with McCain/Rice, I'll retire from a lifetime of rational thought and in future only vote for the next American Idol. It will make a lot more sense.

Stewart Braunstein
www.stonecutter.blogspot.com

Deerfield Beach, FL

This article demonstrates the power of a deadline in the punditry business.

Mr. von Hoffmann suggests that selecting Ms. Rice would be a political coup for Mr. McCain. He states that she could "win the election" for him, by solidifying the base. Furthermore, he suggests that "creativity" is required to make the selection of Ms. Rice. Hallucination is more like it.

Von Hoffmann's position is wrong for several reasons. First, one must ask, how many votes does a vice-presidential pick earn for a candidate? I have never met someone who says "I'm voting for the Vice President." On the contrary, VP selections are primarily Hippocratic in nature--the first goal is to do no harm. Because selecting a running mate is the first executive decision of the administration, a poor choice demonstrates poor judgment and can work against the candidate. All indicators suggest that selecting Rice would fail the Hippocratic test.

Selecting Rice would attach the entire Bush presidency at the hip to McCain's campaign. Mr McCain's chief electoral strength is that he is not associated with the Bush Administration, and was often its tormentor. Given McCain's age and medical history, his running mate will be scrutinized as a quite probable "accidental" President. Selecting anyone with such ties to the Administration implies a desire for restoration of the Bush presidency. This, it is clear, is something America does not want.

McCain will do well to pick a solid conservative with no ties to Washington (he is enough the insider) and someone with a political apparatus in the state in which he resides that can be used to increase Republican turnout by two or three points. Rice, it should be noted, has never run for office and has no political apparatus or base of support in any state.

But thinking through the issue would have required more time than the "creativity" Mr von Hoffmann prizes. Tight deadlines can do that to a writer. Perhaps he should try writing novels.

Douglas Pedersen

Munich, Germany

I suspect this article is intended to be slightly tongue-in-cheek. A snappy dresser? A sports fan? Gives better than she takes? What the hell is this stuff?

Why doesn't Hoffman just stick to what he really believes is Rice's strength--that she's a black woman? Far from a superstar. I think any Dem would be more than happy to have this high-profile member of a disastrous administration on the GOP ticket.

Rob Segal

Philadelphia, PA

No one is voting for Condoleeza Rice, much less for John McCain because of Condoleeza.

The only viable choice for McCain is Romney. McCain is unlikely to complete a first term, much less run for and a win a second. Romney, the runner-up and someone who is seen as competent to be President by most people, is the obvious choice.

Michael R.Needle

Philadelphia, PA

The stupidity of this article truly amazes me.

Has Hoffman never heard of a change election? Condi is one of the worst S.O.S. that we have ever had--a fool and an incompetant just like her "husband" (her word), George Bush. Hoffman might want to consider that she would bring all seven years of Bush murder and decimation of our country back onto the political stage for McCain to explain and deal with...

Picking her would be almost as stupid as this article. But not quite. How does he make a living writing this stuff?

Jack Staples

Norwalk, CT

This article is a reminder of how little is necessary to be a "pundit." The biggest burden the Republicans have is the mess they've made of US foreign policy and the fact they are 100 percent responsible for the precipitous drop in respect for the US around the world. Rice was there every step of the way, and choreographed it after Colin Powell was effectively forced out.

This election is the Dems to lose, but if McCain chose Rice, even John Kerry would have a hard time screwing it up.

Brian Peters

Glen Ellyn, Il

I like the point about it taking some imagination for McCain to choose Rice. I doubt it though. She has never been elected to anything and I doubt VP will be the first time. And the baggage she carries being so closely associated with G.W. Bush makes her more risk than what it's worth.

Bruce Anderson

Austin, MN

By using the words "person of color" in reference to an black person or African-American, demostrates how insensitive and out of tune is Mr. von Hoffman. His choice of words belong to a most disgraceful period in American history. Shame on you for using this most hateful term that belongs only in the mind and behavior of racist people.

Juan C. Diaz

Miami, FL

I could not disagree more with this article. A McCain/Rice ticket would be a disaster for the Republicans for the same reason that Huckabee took five states and was only a few thousand votes from winning South Carolina, Missouri and Washington. The conservative base came out and supported Mitt Romney, who is now out of the race. McCain, an establishment outsider, is now the leading candidate because the Republican Party appears unaware that it was the Conservative Christian vote that won them the 2000 & 2004 elections. It was Huckabee's rise to prominence last autumn that allowed McCain to raise himself from the dead and make this run for the nomination.

It appears that the Democrats also do not recognize who the biggest swing group of voters in the Republican Party is. If the Democrats would open their wide-shut eyes and see that Southern evangelical voters are totally frustrated with and alienated from their current party, they could make some inroads back into an important part of the country, the rural South that they once dominated.

Hollis Greystone

Milwaukee, WI

Mr. von Hoffman is right: Condeleeza Rice is political gold for the GOP. Another excellent choice for McCain that would keep Democrats up at night would be Rep. J.C. Watts: an African-American former church pastor and founder of an Africa AIDS relief charity who's a dynamic speaker with strong name ID and solid conservative credentials. He would motivate both the base and attract independents and, unlike Rice, he'd have zero Bush-association/war baggage, having left Congress in '02.

William Yelles

Santa Barbara, CA

I've been reading on some blogs recently this idea of McCain/Rice. Much to my amusement, Jon Stewart made a good point about Rice on The Daily Show on Monday night, saying that Rice said under oath that essentially there was no reason to believe that Al Qaeda was an imminent threat to the US or something to that effect. And then she was forced to read out loud the banner from a letter she delivered to the President in August of 2001 entitled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." This should be a reminder that it will be very difficult for Rice to run on the McCain ticket, considering her history inside the Bush White House and the public's displeasure with the President.

James Berk

Montclair, NJ

If McCain picks Condeleeza Rice, the co-architect of the Iraq War, as his running mate, he might as well forfeit the election now rather than be humiliated in November. A better choice would be Chuck Hagel or Kaye Bailey Hutchison. Obama should select Al Gore as his running mate, and it would be a very interesting campaign, indeed, with Obama/Gore winning in November. Gore will match up well against anyone McCain chooses, and if he is crazy enough to choose Rice, all I could say in November would be (with much happiness), "Welcome to the White House President and Mrs. Obama."

Mark Jeffery Koch

Cherry Hill, NJ

Condoleeza Rice is no one to fear. Sure, she's a black woman. But if McCain picks her, it will be painfully obvious that he picked her for a strategic advantage over the Democratic nominee, and this would backfire in its affect on race and gender.

This VP choice would also assume that female and black voters are ignorant and foolish. Does von Hoffman honestly think that any person currently planning to vote for Obama or Clinton would switch their vote to a ticket with McCain and a Bush cabinet member? Seriously, think about this.

Senator McCain couldn't possibly pick a worse establishment running mate. A pro-100-year-war presidential candidate with George W. Bush's Secretary of State running as VP? Are you serious? The GOP couldn't pick a more establishment choice in the face of the most anti-establishment, pro-change political atmosphere this country has seen in decades.

I, as an Obama supporter, could never wish for a better combination than McCain/Rice for Obama to run against. Your suggestion, and any right-wing thoughts that Rice's race and gender would affect the vote, is painfully presumptuous and highly negligent in the current political atmosphere. Condoleeza Rice as a VP would do little more than engrave the words "President Obama" in stone.

Brian Rich

Boise, ID