By popular standards of pundit speculation, Condoleezza Rice
should have the nomination as Romney’s running mate nailed—for at least another
week.
She’s had senior government experience—and has never raised
a tax, launched an entitlement, or borrowed a cent from China. She’s a visible member
of two shrinking minorities in the Republican Party. She’s an academic in a party
that has exhausted its rhetoric against the pointy-headed intellectual in the
White House. And Condoleezza Rice is the most popular and recognized potential
candidate out there—70% of those who think they know who she is also like her.
Click on: www.businessinsider.com/condoleezza-rice-for-vice-president-mitt-romneys-best-choice-2012-7
Last week’s special reasons for catapulting her into first
place in the VP guessing game were twofold: someone close to the Romney
campaign said she was, and a few good sources reported that she’d just “electrified”
a select audience of Romney advisors, fundraisers, and Republican elders at a private
retreat in Park City, Utah.
Good sense argues that these reasons aren’t good enough.
Governor Rick Perry was supposed to be charismatic, too, and
spreading a fanciful rumor about a nice lady is better politics than fighting
the other guy’s fanciful rumors about Mitt Romney’s finances. No one gets hurt.
Nevertheless, there are two rather surprising reasons for suspecting
that she might end up on the ticket.
One: Romney’s speech to the NAACP last week made it brutally
clear that his own campaign and his platform will make the least effort of any
Republican campaign in modern history to reach out to black voters on their
terms.
Romney is reconciled to make it all the way to the White
House with white votes. Having a cerebral black running mate would help those
white votes reconcile themselves to the idea as well.
Two: she sounds like she wants it. Just listen to Buzzfeed’s
pirated audio of that 13-minute speech.
Rice slavishly repeats the most belligerent talking points
of Gingrich, McCain, and Romney. She makes Ambassador Huntsman sound like a
European. Her attacks on Obama’s personal leadership and affection for
“entitlements” are as one-sided, alarmist, and bitter as any remarks that could
be asked of—and ghosted for—any potential attack-dog for the Romney ticket.
Concern that Rice’s “moderate pro-choice” position on
abortion would be too great a swallow for social conservatives is naïve.
They’ll still fight against the greater evil—Barack Obama. Conversely, Romney strategists
can’t hope to cut into Obama’s support amongst blacks by repeating that too
many blacks are unemployed and that the highest marginal tax rate is too high.
Finally, her candidacy—along with her speech—would nicely irritate
liberals and black leaders.
Romney, the artless businessman who can’t dance, could, in
fact, create a scene that could arouse and enthuse the Silent Majority: there those
lefties go again, rubbing our noses in past mistakes and complaining about a fine
black professional who doesn’t whine, apologize for Iraq, or even talk about
food stamps and universal healthcare.
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