There’s a dream out there, and her name is Condi. Since her
confirmation last month as Secretary of State, enthusiasm for the
idea of a Condoleezza Rice presidential candidacy seems to be
bursting out all over. Condi-for-President paraphernalia is
available for purchase on several websites; some of it was spotted
last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where
Rice garnered 18% in the straw poll of activists’ favorites for the
2008 nomination, behind only Rudy Giuliani (19%).
There are at least nine websites dedicated exclusively to
encouraging a Rice campaign, with names like Rice2008, Condi for
Prez, Citizens for Condi, and Blogs for Condi; the last has links
to about 30 bloggers who are bullish on a Rice ‘08 run. (Click
here.)
There’s already a 527, Americans for Rice, raising money to promote the
idea of a Rice candidacy and support her campaign, if there is
one.
There’s something a little odd about all this. Rice has
expressed no interest in running. The Secretary of State hasn’t
been a stepping stone to the presidency in 150 years. We know very
little about her thoughts on domestic policy, and what we do know
gives few hints as to how she might govern.
At a luncheon in 1999 Rice described herself as a “Second
Amendment absolutist” — growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, she
watched blacks in the early sixties arming themselves in
self-defense during periods of racial tension. But on affirmative
action, she’s offered only the lame statement that “while
race-neutral means are preferable, it is appropriate to use race as
one factor among others in achieving a diverse student body”;
liberals cheered. On abortion, she’s reportedly
described herself as “mildly pro-choice” or “reluctantly
pro-choice”; no word on what, specifically, she means by that.
As with Giuliani, her chief appeal is that she might be counted
on to continue with a Bush-style foreign policy. But it’s worth
noting that she doesn’t have many fans in the foreign policy
establishment, even on the right half; a little birdie who has
worked for the civilian leadership at the Pentagon at a very high
level has told me that he knows no one in government who thinks
much of her. Indeed, getting National Security Council members on
the same page is to a certain extent part of the National Security
Advisor’s job, and the way that bureaucratic infighting sometimes
paralyzed decision-making during Rice’s tenure is not encouraging.
As David Frum has noted, it took 14 months to settle on an interim leader
for Iraq simply because there was an unresolved disagreement about
who would be the right man.
One of the biggest driving forces behind enthusiasm for Rice is
the notion, popularized by Dick Morris, that she is the best
candidate to stop Hillary Clinton. Writes Morris:
The political fact is that a Rice candidacy would
destroy the electoral chances of the Democratic Party by
undermining its demographic base. John Kerry got 54 percent of his
vote from three groups that, together, account for about a third of
the American electorate: African-Americans, Hispanics and single
white women. Rice would cut deeply into any Democrat’s margin among
these three groups and would, most especially, deny Clinton the
strong support she would otherwise receive from each of
them.
The basis for Morris’s political assumption is dubious. There’s
little evidence that blacks are much more likely to vote for black
Republicans as they are for white Republicans, and the mention of
Hispanics is, unless I’m missing something, a non sequitur. Maybe
single white women would be more open to a candidate like Rice, but
that’s hardly a slam dunk. In a Rasmussen poll earlier this month,
Sen. Clinton led Dr. Rice 55% to 32% among those who are not
married. Overall, Rasmussen showed Clinton leading Rice 47% to
40%.
This isn’t the first time Republicans have gotten starry-eyed
about an idealized black candidate; there was buzz about a
potential Colin Powell candidacy in the fall of 1995. Hilariously,
William Kristol was a booster a Powell, years before Powell became
undoubtedly Kristol’s least favorite cabinet member. (Others at the
Weekly Standard were less enthused.) By that time, it was
clear that the GOP field was weak enough to make the lackluster Bob
Dole the frontrunner. While the field for 2008 isn’t looking all
that exciting at this point, there is plenty of time for a
formidable candidate to emerge. The slightly desperate courting of
Rice seems awfully premature.
