Rice as McCain’s running mate? Not so fast

Is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lobbying Sen. John McCain to be his running mate? If so, the Arizona senator and presumptive Republican nominee is playing it very coy.

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“I didn’t hear that,” McCain said on his campaign plane Sunday in response to questions about comments by Dan Senor, a former military spokesman for coalition forces in Baghdad, who appeared on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos. ” “I missed those signals.”

McCain complemented Rice, saying he could offer nothing but “utmost praise for a great American citizen, who served as a role model to so many millions of people in this country and around the world.”

But he followed later with some very faint praise indeed, suggesting that while her overall record is “very, very meritorious,” she bore some responsibility for the management of the war in Iraq as national security advisor during the first year and a half of the conflict.

In his appearance Sunday on ABC, Senor noted Rice’s talk before an unusual forum for a secretary of state: a meeting last week of economic conservatives led by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

“Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this,” Senor asserted.

Rice has denied being interested in the vice presidency. A Fox News report today quoted “a very well placed source inside Rice’s office” calling the report “laugh out loud funny.” The source said Rice’s plan is to go back to California after President Bush leaves the White House. “Don’t buy the Condi talk. She is out (of) here — to have her life back,” the source said.

Conservative bloggers were generally laudatory of a McCain-Rice ticket, but worried that her ties to the present administration could backfire

An excellent candidate but is she too close to President Bush for the GOP and John McCain’s liking? Rice is from California and would appeal to those moderate and independent voters in the Golden State.
However, Rice is pro-choice on abortion and will run into trouble with conservatives on this issue. Plus, she lacks executive experience.
Rice is an accomplished Secretary of State but Flap thinks there are better Vice Presidential choices for Senator McCain.

Others like outsidethewire noted that McCain would do well to have a black woman on his ticket to dispel criticism of perceived lack of diversity in the Republican party - and to siphon off any bounce from a Democratic ticket featuring the first female or black presidential candidate.

Now while I’ve been calling on Dr. Rice to run for president for years, her very presence aside John McCain would do more to destroy the Democrat Party than any super delegate fiasco on the Denver convention floor. . . . The bottom line is not only to put a Republican in The White House, but also show the Democrats for whom they’ve always been: a bigoted party of sexist hypocrites.

Predictably, liberal scribblers like TalkLeft thought the whole thing laughable - or worse.

The problem is that too many people will realize whoever McCain picks as VP has a high chance of becoming president and I can’t think of anyone who would say Condi Rice is equipped or qualified to be President. In fact, that’s a very scary proposition..

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