Should Mitt Romney pick Condoleezza Rice as his running mate?
The current results from a meaningless online poll at the Wall Street Journal:
I don’t know who’s floating this; most of the conservative bloggers say it’s absurd and totally outside the realm of possibility. It’s probably just an attempt to distract the media from the Bain Capital stuff.
Personally, I think it would be interesting to have a wonkish, pro-choice, black female non-robot on the ticket with Romney. Everything he’s not! But of course my opinion doesn’t matter because I’m not going to be voting Republican anyway. The people who matter are the batshit fundies and wingers who are already uncomfortable with Willard. A wonkish pro-choice black female non-robot is probably not going to appeal to them.
As for Rice’s record in the Bush Administration, pundits on both sides of the aisle seem to think that it would be toxic to voters. I’m not so sure. Certainly conservative voters wouldn’t be bothered; these people are still posting eagle gifs and talking about ‘Murka’s Enemies. Liberals aren’t going to vote for Romney regardless, so that leaves the perpetually undecided middle-of-the-roaders, the kind of people who feature in Samantha Bee skits. And those people, I bet you a million dollars, don’t even know what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. They think yellowcake is a Duncan Hines mix.*
UPDATE: *Upon reflection (and the consumption of a can of Diet Sunkist Orange Soda), I want to expand on this a bit. It’s not just a question of not knowing about Rice’s role in Bush’s disastrous foreign policy; it’s a question of not caring, at least in terms of the VP slot. Vice Presidents aren’t usually the architects of an administration’s foreign policy, and so for independents leaning towards Romney, Rice’s record on that score just might not matter all that much.
31 Responses to “Should Mitt Romney pick Condoleezza Rice as his running mate?”
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Riverdaughter says:
I don’t think it will work. Romney could definitely wrap things up with the right woman candidate. It would make the mental gears of typical Democratic operative seize up trying to figure out if the “war on women” meme would conflict with their natural tendencies to be total misogynistic dicks. Well, they screwed themselves into a corner on that one.
But the purpose of putting a woman on the republican ticket is to capture a lot of disaffected female Democrats and female independents. Hey, maybe They wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about Rcie but I couldn’t see myself voting for her. I just keep seeing that image of her dragged kicking and screaming in front of the 911 commission where she was forced to squeak out the title of that infamous memo. That was infuriating to watch. So, if I were Romney, I’d look around for a female governor or senator who is not like palin. Olympia Snowe might be a better choice.July 13th, 2012 at 5:18 pm EST -
Violet Socks says:
Interesting piece from CNN:
CNN) — Condoleezza Rice for vice president?
Before we go A-to-Z with pros and cons, let’s start with why Romney’s team might have floated the Condi trial balloon now.
If you were anywhere near a television this week you saw Mitt Romney getting booed at the NAACP convention for saying he would repeal Obamacare. It was running on a virtual loop all over cable news.
Then, suddenly, an exclusive report about a black woman being considered as Romney’s running mate pops up on the Drudge Report.
GOP sources say Matt Drudge is the go-to guy for a top Romney aide when he wants to change a narrative about his candidate.
Now that we’ve gotten the “why now” out of the way, why not explore Rice the running mate. By most Republicans’ accounts, at the end of this report, you will see why Rice will likely not be Romney’s pick.
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quixote says:
About that ‘why now’ thing. It made me spin off into a daydream about a world where women aren’t a distraction, where women are mentioned because people want women’s votes, where …
Anyway. Nothing to do with this election.
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Sweet Sue says:
That’s funny, I’ve always thought that Condaleeza was very robotic, especially, in front of Congressional hearings. Hi, riverdaughter!
My sister says that if Romney chooses a woman for the ticket, it’s a sure sign that the Powers That Be don’t want him and he’s taking a fall.
Depressing, but probably true.
I hate to break it to peeps, but Hillary was our last chance to get a woman in the White House for a least a generation.
I have spoken and await the fires of Moderation Purgatory. -
Violet Socks says:
I have spoken and await the fires of Moderation Purgatory.
Moderation purgatory? Not bloody likely, since everybody in the Smoking Lounge agrees with you (me, God, Raoul, Nietzsche, the alpacas). At least about that last chance in a generation thing. Though I’m an optimistic soul, at least when I’m not severely depressed, so occasionally I get hopeful.
Re Condi: She has a very subdued manner, but she’s a person. She thinks, she has a mind, she has genuine convictions (ruthless militaristic ones, I grant you), she has a life and a piano and all that.
Mitt Headroom to me is just some kind of nightmarish animatronic version of what a presidential candidate is supposed to look like. He’s like a lizard in a person suit.
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Violet Socks says:
Oh wait, I remember now, Sue: you keep going into moderation with every comment. And I still don’t know why. I’ve checked all the filters and so on, and I can’t figure out what it is that’s triggering them. Your IP seems fine, your address, etc. I don’t understand it.
But since I basically have a HAL situation here with the Filters, maybe they’re engaged in some kind of vengeful war of attrition on you that I don’t know about.
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Sweet Sue says:
One more time, because I’m banned at Shakesville.
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Violet Socks says:
Look! You got through!
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Violet Socks says:
Didn’t you? Or did I just hallucinate that? Didn’t your comment go through that time without getting hung up in moderation?
At any rate, in all seriousness: there is no connection with Shakesville. My filters are my own. I do use Akismet, which is the filter everybody uses for spam, but you’re not getting flagged by Akismet. Your comments always have the “cleared by Akismet” seal of approval. So whatever is causing them to hang up has got to be connected in some way to this blog, to your posting history here or possibly to the history of your IP.
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quixote says:
(Susan, fwiw, your ISP will change your IP from time to time. If you get one that used to be used by a spammer, you’ll be in moderation limbo pretty much everywhere. It’s happened to me twice, it’s maddening, and there’s nothing you can do. My theory is they like to cycle polluted IPs to regular folks since after several months of no spam from that IP the anti-spam databases no longer flag them. Then, in my tinfoil hat world, the ISPs resell them to spammers at a premium price.)
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quixote says:
Wow. My last comment went straight to spam. Not even moderation. Eeenteresting.
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Sweet Sue says:
Well, okay, but I’m sure that I’ve never been in dutch at your site, Vi.
“In dutch”-heh, heh, how old am I anyway.
And why do Beavis and Buthead live in my brain and make horrible comments about me? -
Jay says:
Question… why is this blog so easily able to recognize Rice’s role in Bush’s disastrous foreign policy… but incapable of recognizing Hillary’s role in Obama’s perfectly continuous and equally disastrous foreign policy?
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Sweet Sue says:
Thanks, quixote, I didn’t really understand a word you said but I appreciate the info.
:>) -
Violet Socks says:
why is this blog so easily able to recognize Rice’s role in Bush’s disastrous foreign policy… but incapable of recognizing Hillary’s role in Obama’s perfectly continuous and equally disastrous foreign policy?
I guess by “this blog” you mean me?
If so, then you are making a remarkable number of false assumptions.
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cellocat says:
fwiw, Sweet Sue, my comments always go into moderation too.
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Violet Socks says:
Okay, Jay, here’s the deal: the United States is a bloody empire. It has been so for far longer than I’ve been alive. I personally grew up in the shadow of the Vietnam War, in the era of Henry Kissinger. All Presidents and all Secretaries of State basically carry on the imperial project; the fundamental status quo does not vary no matter who is in office. They all have blood on their hands, if you want to be lurid about it.
Nevertheless, there are still distinguishable differences among them. If we take as given that all Secretaries of State are starting from a baseline of imperial ruthlessness, how do they score beyond that?
George W. Bush’s foreign policy was, I submit, spectacularly inept and misguided. Singularly so. Condi Rice made phenomenal blunders both as NSA and Secretary of State.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has not made any major blunders, at least as far as I know. She has not falsified intelligence or lied us into new wars or anything like that. What she has done is serve the president’s foreign policy, which is what all Secretaries of State do (and again, I grant you that it is a bloody imperialist policy).
On the plus side, Hillary has made women’s rights a centerpiece of her personal tenure at State, and so that definitely goes in the plus column.
It is also my impression that Hillary has been more successful than Rice as a diplomat, though that is hard to measure given that the world generally likes Obama’s administration far better than they liked Bush’s.
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Sweet Sue says:
cellocat says:
fwiw, Sweet Sue, my comments always go into moderation tooAnd, since, you and quixote are true blue feminists, that gives me comfort.
I don’t have BO!I love this site, our blog mistress and the commenters-commentariat?-are unabashedly feminist,
That’s so rare these days. -
Jay says:
“All Presidents and all Secretaries of State basically carry on the imperial project; the fundamental status quo does not vary no matter who is in office. They all have blood on their hands, if you want to be lurid about it.”
Well, we agree. You just see more value in the distinctions, and that’s fine. I think elevating women’s (or racial minorities, or gay people) roles in participating in the bloody, ruthless, imperial killing machine isn’t progress at all.
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Jay says:
This isn’t to say she hasn’t done any good work on women’s rights at State. It’s just that at a certain point I have trouble getting past her eager and enthusiastic participation in the bloodletting when I evaluate her as a leader.
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Violet Socks says:
I think elevating women’s (or racial minorities, or gay people) roles in participating in the bloody, ruthless, imperial killing machine isn’t progress at all.
Really? That’s your argument? The basic system is still shit, so what’s the point of stopping the Congo rapes? What’s the point of ending apartheid? What’s the point of ending Jim Crow?
Seriously, man, think about what you’re saying.
ETA: Or am I misunderstanding you? Because I do see that argument quite a bit from young white male progressives. The idea that fixing women’s rights or racial equality or whatever is some kind of meaningless band aid because the basic system (which affects young white male progressives) hasn’t changed.
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Carmonn says:
I think elevating women’s (or racial minorities, or gay people) roles in participating in the bloody, ruthless, imperial killing machine isn’t progress at all.
So what exactly would be progress for women, racial minorities, and gay people in your eyes? Knowing that women’s rights are such an overwhelming priority among young, white progressive males, I’m sure a great deal of thought has been put into this question. Let me guess, should we not worry our heads about such trivialities because all repressive categories will disappear with the end of the bloody, ruthless, imperial killing machine?
Our day of deliverance is practically at hand, then.
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Jay says:
I wasn’t talking about Congo rapes. I was talking about citing women as leaders of the killing machine as “progress”. (I read your comment too fast and thought that’s what you were crediting Hillary for.)
If Hillary has done good work in stopping Congo rapes that is fantastic… (can you point me to some info on this?) but can you really blame these people for throwing tomatoes at Mrs. “I consider Hosni Mubarrak a close friend of the family” Clinton?
http://www.reuters.com/article.....7520120715
As for progress for minorities my idea is probably the same as yours. Mascots for the empire is not progress. Was Obama being elected progress for minorities? Maybe, but pretty empty when you look at their economic straits under his leadership, his escalation of the drug war, and his record smashing deportation rate.
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Violet Socks says:
I was talking about citing women as leaders of the killing machine as “progress”…Mascots for the empire is not progress.
I wasn’t talking about women or minorities in leadership positions, but since you bring it up, yes that is progress. A non-racist non-sexist empire is better than a racist sexist empire, even though it’s still an empire.
But hey, please feel free to visit your local NAACP and tell them that we don’t need any black men in government because they would just be “mascots for the empire.”
(I would tell you to deliver a similar speech to your local NOW, but you’re kind of already doing that here.)
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Jay says:
To your NAACP comment – Glen Ford and Bruce A. Dixon often make that exact point… that the establishment of black mascots for the empire has made things worse for black people… he calls them the “Black Misleadership Class”
You’ve probably seen their site: http://www.blackagendaradio.com
And more on Hillary -
http://therealnews.com/t2/inde.....mival=8590You still didn’t answer my question… can you blame the Egyptians for their widespread hatred of her?
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Violet Socks says:
You’ve probably seen their site: http://www.blackagendaradio.com
Really? It’s right there in my blogroll feed and has been for years; BAR articles regularly pop up right there in my sidebar and I’ve linked to Bruce many times. So yeah, I’ve probably seen their site.
To your NAACP comment – Glen Ford and Bruce A. Dixon often make that exact point…
Nope. That is not the point Glen and Bruce often make. The point they often make is that the current black leadership class is ineffectual and in thrall to corporate interests and the white-dominated status quo.
Here’s a simple way to think about it: Imagine there are two empires, both pretty much the same in every respect, except:
—Empire A has a leadership class that is closed to everyone except white men. Only white men can aspire to public office.
—Empire B has a leadership class that is open to women and men of all races.
It is the general view of feminists and civil rights activists that Empire B is preferable to Empire A. That’s because discrimination on the basis of race or sex is, in itself, a categorical ill. It is always bad, in every situation and in every class of society, including the top. So feminists and civil rights activists demand a world where the color of your skin or the shape of your body doesn’t bar you from becoming a politician or pundit or judge or diplomat.
It is apparently your view that Empire B is no better than Empire A. The elimination of racist/sexist barriers to the leadership class is not worthwhile in itself; it is only valuable if it results in other changes that you feel are more important.
You still didn’t answer my question… can you blame the Egyptians for their widespread hatred of her?
Clinton is a symbol of America, and many Egyptians are furious with America. If you actually think that this is indicative of her personal level of evil—as opposed to, say, opinion on the Arab street, which is a complex melange of factors—then it sounds to me like you have an unhealthy obsession.
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Jay says:
Empires A AND B carry out racist and sexist imperial policies around the globe.
Have you checked on the rights of women in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the countless other viciously brutal dictatorships Hillary Clinton dutifully helps to prop up?
Have they experienced progress as more women and blacks enter the power structure that oppresses them?
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Violet Socks says:
Dude, you’re just not getting it. You’re repeating yourself and continuing to miss the point. Chill.
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Carmonn says:
Jay, do you think you’re saying anything anybody doesn’t know? Jesus. Just because Empire A and B are both bad doesn’t mean apartheid South Africa is no different from any other inherently evil nation state. There are degrees of bad and degrees of progress. Just because an idea is new to you does not mean it’s new to people decades older than you.
And you didn’t answer my question. What would constitute progress for women, minorities, and gays and lesbians, and what concrete steps can we take to get there? Just tell everyone to sit tight until we manage to abolish the global hegemony of capitalist imperialism?
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Violet Socks says:
Carmonn, the problem with guys like Jay is that they don’t really perceive racism and sexism as bad.
If we were talking about child rape, for example—something that presumbably even Jay would regard as a categorical ill—these problems in logic wouldn’t arise. You don’t see people like Jay going around saying, “how dare you be relieved that single instance of child rape was prevented! Don’t you realize we’re still living in a capitalist nightmare?”
Or even, “how dare you be relieved that a single child rape was prevented, when there are still child rapes going on?”
Nope. You only get this massive failure of logic when white guys try to figure out why eliminating even a single instance of racism or sexism is a good thing. Doesn’t compute for them.
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Carmonn says:
Exactly. Talking about Secretary Clinton seems to upset you, Jay, so let’s talk about Rice instead. Rice presided over a lot of terrible things, no doubt about that. However, as you (sort of) acknowledge, most of that was not unique to her, nothing much would have changed, in all likelihood, if Bush had appointed a white man instead. Where she differs from that white man is that she has a much better record than anyone else Bush would realistically have appointed when it comes to promoting women’s rights. She pushed to recognize rape as a war crime. She pushed to provide aid for victims of rape in Darfur. She allocated resources to combating sex slavery.
Now, was this adequate? No. Could she have done more? Sure. Did the Bush Administration do much more harm than good? Of course. But was it better to have had her there than to have anyone else Bush would conceivably have appointed? Yes. So, having one woman there actually did on balance create positive change that would not have otherwise occurred.
I understand that that means nothing to you, but seriously, a white dude trying to tell women and men of color that we’d actually be BETTER OFF (#25) with an all-white, all-male power structure (been there, done that, btw)? Can you understand that that might be unpersuasive, unsupported by facts, and frankly kind of unseemly? Especially when it seems like you have no viable alternative solutions for our deluded, false-consciousness hampered selves?
