Condi is being drafted, reluctantly

While there is certainly no shortage of potential candidates for the 2008 election to discuss, a recent poll pitting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice against conventional Republican presidential candidates sparked mass curiosity throughout the mainstream media this week. The poll, conducted by Marist College Institute (which can be found on the Angus Reid web site) shows Dr. Rice is tied for first within the Republican Party. According to the poll, Dr. Rice is tied for first with Rudy Giuliani—both garnering 21% percent of the respondents. In a close third is Senator John McCain with 19%.

So, what does this mean? Is Dr. Rice interested in a run for the White House? According to a recent interview with Tim Russert, no. Dr. Rice has said that she is flattered by the fact that she has been asked to run for the office, but that is not something she wants to do with her life. However, her denials are only sparking more interest in a Rice campaign as a grassroots movement to recruit her into action is forming throughout the country. According to the Detroit Free Press, ‘Americans for Dr. Rice’ is a grassroots internet movement that is beginning to take hold. Their goal is to persuade Dr. Rice into joining the race by demonstrating the widespread support that she would be able to tap into if she would just run. Matt May, the head of the Michigan arm of Americans for Dr. Rice, said “her pedigree is just amazing, her abilities are great…She, more than any other potential candidate out there -- and that includes Republicans -- understands the threat of terrorism. I think that's the No. 1 one issue.” There could be some wisdom to this claim. As Secretary of State, Dr. Rice is in a unique position to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the state of the world and threats to the American people than any other potential candidate. If she were to join the race, she would be able to speak intelligently about the problems facing our country.

Americans for Dr. Rice are not the only proponents of a 2008 Rice candidacy. Former Clinton advisor, Dick Morris, has come out in support of Dr. Rice while promoting his new book Condi vs. Hillary. The fact that Morris would switch alliances from the Clinton camp to one of the foremost neo-conservatives is curious for most people. When he was asked to explain, he said that he hasn’t changed his support, Bill and Hillary “switched Clintons” on him. He went on to attack Hillary Clinton saying, “Hillary’s next new idea would be her first.” I find this to be quite interesting considering in the same Detroit Free Press piece cited above, it was revealed that in a hypothetical contest between to two women, Clinton is leading 50-41 in a Marist poll.

Another point I find interesting in the prospect of a Rice campaign is the fact that, if elected, she would be the first African-American president and be from a party that enjoys little African-American support. With G.W. Bush polling at 2% with African-Americans, a Rice candidacy seems like just the thing to bring some African-Americans back to the Republican camp. But, I’m not sure this is true. Rice does not seem to connect with blacks like other politicians do, Sen. Barack Obama for example. She does not make a point to speak on civil rights, oppose her party’s stance on affirmative action, or allude to her upbringing in Birmingham, a city abound in civil rights issues at the time she was a child, as a distinguishing factor in the development of her character or her political beliefs. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post proposed a theory for why she does not seem to connect to blacks—she never experienced the events that shaped the American black consciousness. When growing up in Birmingham, Rice lived a part of town called Titusville. Titusville was composed of the few wealthy, affluent black families in the town. They never faced racial intimidation because they kept themselves in a “bubble” in order to ignore the events going on outside. While other blacks were subjected to the Jim Crowe mentalities that reigned at that time, she was learning piano and ballet. It is this upbringing that allows Rice to comment on race, but not feel anything about the issue, according to Robinson. If this is the case, a Rice candidacy may not fit into Karl Rove’s format for capturing the black vote from Democrats. Putting up a ‘white-washed’ African-American and calling her the first black president is a trick that even ‘The Architect’ cannot pull off.