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February 20, 2005
Condi, yea -- Condi, nay
Carpe Bonum believes that Condi Rice, as a presidential candidate, would suffer from not having won elected office before. I had the same thoughts, but then I remembered Dwight Eisenhower and more recently Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not so fast, says Carpe Bonum:
Of course there counterexamples to this rule such as Ronald Reagan's California Governorship, Hillary Clinton's US Senate seat, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dwight Eisenhower. Each of these had exceptional circumstances which I don't see in Rice's case.
Condi is a great person. I loved what she did as National Security Advisor and what she is doing as Secretary of State. I'll back her 100% if she is nominated. But my hope is she will not run for President unless she proves she can get elected to some other office first.
I doubt if anyone will ever again possess the combination of affection and respect that Eisenhower did--the media was more civil (and much smaller in size), the national threats much larger, and our heroes larger, too.
But the example of Schwarzenegger is a lot more encouraging for Condi supporters. We as Americans have a special talent for over-hyping the trivial into a national feeding frenzy. But the nomination of Condi Rice would be a legitimate Big Deal--a deal so authentically huge I think it would dwarf Schwarzenegger's election as a captivating story. I think the combination of being African-American and being a woman would be an irresistible force.
BTW, if Hillary does run, along with Condi, the timing of the conventions will be interesting: the convention that comes first will produce the "first woman nominee for President."
UPDATE: Patrick Ruffini (hat tip Decision '08) has the scoop on a straw poll conducted at the recent CPAC convention:
For the GOP:19% Giuliani
18% Rice
11% Allen, Frist, McCain ...
Hmmm...
Rice/Guiliani vs. Clinton/...Obama?
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Comments
Thanks for the link to Carpe Bonum.
As per my policy(*), I have added you to my blogroll and newsreader feedlist.
I look forward to more blogospheric interaction.
/cb
Carpe Bonum blog
http://cbcbcbbcb.blogspot.com/
(*) Carpe Bonum is a very new blog and I am a very new blogger. Thus my policy is that any blogger who demonstrates through manual action having actually noticed the blog gets put on my RSS feedlist and my blogroll. (Such actions could be linking, blogrolling, replying to an email from me, etc.) I dream of the day this becomes impossible to manage through sheer volume.
Posted by: Carpe Bonum at February 21, 2005 10:13 AM
