Below The Beltway

Apparently, President Bush’s Secretary of State has higher ambitions:

ABCNews’ Mary Bruce Reports: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is actively courting the vice presidential nomination, Republican strategist Dan Senor said.

“Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this,” Senor said this morning on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

According to Senor, Rice has been cozying up to the Republican elite.

“There’s this ritual in Washington: The Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Grover Norquist, he holds a weekly meeting of conservative leaders — about 100, 150 people, sort of inside, chattering, class types,” Senor said. “They all typically get briefings from political conservative leaders. Ten days ago, they had an interesting visit — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — the first time a secretary of state has visited the Wednesday meeting.

(…)

“What the McCain campaign has to consider is whether or not they want to pick a total outsider, a fresh face, someone a lot younger than him, a governor who people aren’t that familiar with,” Senor said. “The challenge they’re realizing is that they’ll have to have to spend 30 to 45 days, which they won’t have at that point, educating the American public about who this person is.

“The other category is someone who people instantly say, the second they see that announcement, ‘I get it, that person could be president tomorrow,’” Senor added. “Condi Rice is an option.”

The question is why ? What does Condoleeza Rice bring to the table, in a political sense, that would actually help the ticket ? Why do some conservatives back her even though, like Colin Powell back in 1990s, nobody has the slightest idea what her position on social issues or fiscal policy might actually be ? And what makes her qualified to be President of the United States ?

Frankly, I’m not sure I see it. From a political point of view, she brings absolutely nothing to the table unless, you take Ann Althouse’s tack on the point:

Condoleezza Rice would shake up the racial and gender politics.

Yea ? And ? If the only reason that we’re considering Condi Rice as Vice-President is because she’s black and a woman, then we’re not looking at this from the right perspective. She’s either qualified and a smart political choice, or she’s not.

So is she a smart political choice ? Jason Pye thinks potentially not:’

I’m not sure that McCain would want to have that kind of a tie to the Bush Administration as part of his ticket. It could potentially be a drag to the ticket in an already Democratic year.

While Donklephant gives his take on Rice’s qualifications:

Question: does anybody think she’s ready to lead the free world? Anybody think she has displayed the type of judgment need to be the POTUS? Anybody think she’d be in her current position if she didn’t simply fall lockstep in line with everything Bush wants?

No, neither do I.

Meanwhile AJ Strata is far more optimistic:

If I have to support McCain (not my first choice) I will. But put Condi on the ticket and the future looks bright indeed. Moreover, I cannot wait to show up the Dems who have an African American battling with a woman as figurines showcasing the supposed vaunted liberal lead on minorities. What sweet justice it would be to see the two dems carving each other up while blacks and women fight for their place in history, and with Condi you can get both slots at once.

Condi represents the American dream, and that shining city on the hill Reagan spoke so much about. A McCain-Rice ticket would be something for the history books, and good Pelosi and Reid serious heart burn along the way.

For myself, I just don’t see it. Rice has no political experience outside of the foreign policy establishment, and, even there, she hasn’t exactly distinguished herself in the past seven years. If McCain does appoint her, it will be, quite frankly, because she’s a black woman. And if that’s the only criteria he could just as easily appoint Tyra Banks.