President Condi Rice
 

Should she run? The question came up in a poll so I thought of y'all.

Fun fact: I once shared a table with Condoleeza Rice, April 1999 at the Stanford Jamba Juice. It was crowded and there we were. We talked about my dad who I was visiting. This is before her Secret Service detail, back when she worked for Stanford.

Condi in '08?

I think she's very unlikable. Her voice always seems taut, like she's really hung up, or on the edge of punching someone, or something.

I don't have that reaction at all.

I think it would be interesting if she ran, and can see the circumstances of running against a woman or black man pushing the part in that direction but I think she is just too tainted by the current administration and that the Republican nomination will have to come from a governor who can legitimately claim separatoin.

But before she got sucked into the black hole of Bushian foreign policy the broad strokes of her views with which I was familiar were a palatable form of conservativism for me.

And, if we have a shot at electing a woman president having the first one be single would be pleasant in that a lot of stupid questions wouldn't be asked.

This sums it up for me as well. I generally respected her until she became a parrot for the administration's continual double-talk on Iraq.

Sure she should run.
Could she win? I don't know.
:)

Then there's that big gap in her teeth.



And we'd have to endure that clip from the 9/11 Commission hearings ad infinitum. She's sickeningly repulsive as an apologist for this administration's abject failures.

That's where I am with her, too.

In person, she seemed more ladylike than anything else. Almost soft but in the steel magnolia tradition of grandes dames.

I don't see how she lives down the "my husband" gaffe and all the tabloids suggesting she is breaking up the Bush marriage. Not to mention the flipside accusations of lesbianism.

If a woman is going to earn my vote, she has to be someone who was not having sex with the president. Like Hillary Clinton.

Somehow until you mentioned it and I looked it up I had never heard of the "my husband" thing.

And, if she were to come out at a black lesbian woman conservative is there any way she'd not win?

I think it's a given that among those who hold the current administration in total disregard would not vote for Condoleeza Rice, but then they're not likely to vote for any Republican. She doesn't have much cross over appeal (which is the problem I see for Hilary Clinton as well, to those even moderately on the right they're going to vote for almost anybody else before they'll vote for her; same, in reverse or Rice).

But how crippling is her association to the middle and right? That's harder to gauge because they don't think the war is illegal. They don't think there was a lot of intentional lying going on. They simply think the war has been prosecuted poorly and on information that turned out to be wrong.

In modern presidential politics the calculus is more often "who can win" than "who should win" and if the specter of running and old white guy (McCain, for example) against a young charismatic black guy seems to burdensome I can easily imagine Rice's patina mysteriously beginning to shine again.

Of course, there is also the question of whether she wants to be president. I don't think she is so inclined and it would take a pretty strong "Draft Condi" movement to convince her (there is always a pretend "Draft X" movement so that the candidate can say they aren't doing it for personal glory but rather because the populace demands it, but I think hers would have to be more real).

But considering that not of the currently prominent Republican hopefuls are sparking much interest from me, I think she would be an interesting addition.

sure, I'd vote for her. beats writing in Mickey Mouse again