Posted on 07/13/2004 8:44:20 PM PDT by Utah Girl
There is really only one way that President Bush can break the electoral stalemate that threatens to divide the nation evenly in the election of 2004: He can put Colin Powell on his ticket for vice president and ask Vice President Dick Cheney to become secretary of State.
Cheney, who deserves the nation’s thanks for his strong leadership during the war on terror, can best help his boss by encouraging him to reshape his ticket in such a way as to put victory within his grasp. The first vice president since Sen. Alben Barkley (D-Ky.) to take office devoid of presidential ambition, Cheney has served his nation well. As secretary of state, he would continue to lend a guiding hand to our foreign policy and the critical negotiations that loom with Iran and North Korea.
It is not so much the Edwards candidacy that must impel a Powell nomination. But Bush, Cheney and the other leaders of the Republican Party must grasp that the Democratic Party’s growing strength is largely the product of its demographic lock.
With African-Americans casting 12 percent of the vote in high turnout years and splitting 8-1 in favor of the Democrats, Bush and any Republican find themselves in a close battle just to break even. The Hispanic-American vote, closing in on 12 percent as well, adds to the GOP conundrum by breaking 2-1 for the Democrats.
A Powell candidacy would smash that Democratic stranglehold on our electoral math. The popular former general would stand to improve the Republican Party’s standing with both minorities, likely cutting the Democratic margin among blacks to a more reasonable size and increasing the GOP’s appeal to Hispanics as well.
The designation of Colin Powell would be widely popular among white voters, too. His rags-to-riches story, his humble roots, and his public and private integrity will appeal to voters across the racial and partisan divides. If Bush wins and Powell becomes vice president, imagine the impact on the futures all the black children in America when they can look up and see an African-American in the second highest position in our nation.
While Cheney has lent his considerable skill to the effective and dramatic American response to Sept. 11, he does not bring George Bush a single vote he would not otherwise have had. His presence on the ticket carries no state and only reinforces the already solid Republican right for the president. Indeed, Bush is just as popular as his vice president is among his core loyalists. Were Cheney to remain in the administration as secretary of state, he would do as much as he does now to reassure people about where Bush’s heart really lies.
In 1992, Cheney was vital to Bush’s success. His gray hairs were needed and his Washington experience of value to the new president who lacked both. But now that Bush’s coiffure has acquired more than a tint of gray — as has every president’s after four years in that miserable job — and he has mastered the ways of the Capital, Cheney’s presence on the ticket is no longer of any political value.
Would Powell accept a proffer of the vice presidency? He has never turned down a request by his nation to serve in his life and is unlikely to start now. The premium he places on service to his country is old-fashioned and refreshing. The ethic he embodies of selfless service to his nation and to its presidents of either party, above politics and personal ambition, casts one’s memory back to earlier generals who stood by their country in peace and in war — George Marshall if not George Washington himself.
Bush needs to shake things up to avoid a cliffhanger election in 2004. He has got to alter dramatically the political landscape as a Powell designation would surely do.
Bush keeps needing to do this and that in the Morris universe. It is amazing that Bush is still competitive given all the things he has "needed" to do and hasn't.
Well, that clinches it. If Morris says it, the opposite is true. Cheney stays. And rightly so.
I may be incorrect about this, but I seem to recall that suggestion being made four years ago, and I don't believe General Powell wishes to be Vice President.
How exactly is that unifying?
Sure, Dick, show the world that "W" is just a politician after all.
There is no chance whatsoever this will happen. It's people who have media space to fill flapping their gums.
Precisely.
I've found that analysis of Dickie to be quite consistent.
Last month Bush wasn't talking enough "girl talk" to win over women.
This boy genius got Clintoon all the way up to 49% in 96, and all they had to do was sell out the country for campaign cash.
Maybe Dick Morris has been reading my comments... I think a Powell-Cheney switcheroo would be brilliant.
Both for the politics, and as a matter of substance. Vice-Presidents have no real constitutional power anyway. Cheney, as SOS, could really shake up the State Dept.
I think the idea is brilliant. The VP post is ceremonial, the SOS is not.
Colin Powell is a good man.
Ooops... looks like Dickie is just saying Cheney should be dumped. My thinking is Cheney fakes a heart attack, steps aside for "health reasons", Powell is picked as VP, Bush is re-elected, Cheney has a remarkable "recovery", and Bush appoints Cheney SOS.
Well, just between you and me, I don't Powell agrees with too much of the Bush agenda. Heck, Powell is even more liberal than I am! In any event, over time, the bloom would come off such an artifice.
What is up with everyone calling for Cheney to step down ?Cheney is great on the campaign trail and will murdalize Edwards in the debate.
Bush is stuck with Cheney. If Bush was going to change Veeps, he should have done it last year. The media will slam Bush for unprincipled opportunism if he made the switch now.
It doesn't matter. A VP has no real power. Use Powell to get re-elected, then pray Bush doesn't die. Then Powell can spend the next four years breaking ties in the Senate or attending state funerals...
Shut up, Dick, Americans won't fall for sophomoric stunts. When swing voters get to know John Kerry, they'll find him even creepier than Al Gore and will take a pass on him.
Cheney to Morris, f%@#k you!
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