Posted on 07/14/2004 8:14:47 PM PDT by Kaslin
Vice President Dick Cheney has destroyed himself and is creating a mess for President Bush, says one of the nation’s premier political analysts.
Larry Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, offered the cutting assessment in his online analysis "Crystal Ball.” Even though John Kerry hasn’t received the usual bounce after naming his running mate, Sabato writes in his latest newsletter that the Democrat campaign "has put George W. Bush in a box with the selection of John Edwards. And there is probably no way for Bush to win this part of the presidential battle.”
"To put it bluntly, Cheney has blown it,” the straight-shooting Sabato wrote.
He continued: "One would have expected a classic Washington establishment insider to know how to keep his reputation intact through innumerable controversies -- calling the ‘right’ people here, consulting the ‘wise’ men and women of D.C. there, taking the puffed-up press poobahs of the Capital City to lunch at the White House here and there.
"Anybody recall how Henry Kissinger came out of the Nixon sleaze and the Vietnam disaster smelling like a bouquet of yellow roses--at least with the bunch that counts in D.C. and New York--despite the fact that he was in both situations up to his eyeballs?
"Instead of being Kissinger, Cheney has been Nixon in the Bush term. He has hunkered down in the White House and ‘undisclosed locations.’ He's been uncommunicative with the broader public and unconcerned about his image until it's too late. He's often appeared to be the sinister puppeteer, pulling Bush's strings on critical matters like Iraq.
"He's more associated with the Halliburton scandal than anything else in the public mind. And most importantly from a political standpoint, Dick Cheney is now seen as a rigid ideologue, unconcerned about facts that do not fit into his preconceived notions of the world, too closely tied to the far right and too unacceptable to the voters as a whole to be what he once was: workable standby equipment, a potential president who could take office with popular support.
"In short, Cheney has failed his president and become a significant liability.”
Despite all of Edwards’ flaws – his "single term of office in the Senate has been remarkably undistinguished, noted mainly for his overweening ambition,” and he has "a left-wing voting record and a shockingly low attendance record on roll call votes that would make any serious senator blush with embarrassment,” this extremist but telegenic lightweight looks good in comparison with Cheney, Sabato says.
He notes something NewsMax has already pointed out: the media establishment’s enormous hypocrisy in gushing over Edwards even though it attacked the far more experienced nominee Dan Quayle as being too green for the office.
"Be that as it may, there is a deeper story here: The thin resume of Edwards looks so much better because the thick resume of Cheney now looks so bad.”
He concludes Bush is stuck.
"The streets of Washington's political district are filled with rumors and scenarios where Cheney disappears from the GOP ticket. Yet if Bush drops Cheney, the party conservatives -- ever sensitive to a slight -- will wail and gnash their teeth, threaten to go fishing on Election Day, and ruin any bounce Bush might get from a substitute veep.
"If Cheney wants Bush to win, he might want to help the process along by stepping aside. Have you stopped laughing yet? We all know that Cheney still labors under the illusion that he is a plus for Bush, and if doubts ever occur to him, the addiction of the power and the glory of high office acts quickly to banish the thought.”
The only thing Sabato is shooting is himself in the foot.
Cheney will smash Edwards in the debates, if the debates are held in a fair way. The questions need to be unknown to each candidate (but how can we know that with the media in America?), and the questions need to be on serious events of war and peace.
It wouldn't matter if Edwards knew the questions 10 months, 10 days or 10 hours before the debates, Cheney would still slam him. And it wouldn't matter if the subject was nuclear warfare or parenting techniques. Edwards knows how to convince a jury of 12 people in N.C. how to turn a verdict. That's been the only demonstrable talent that he has. He can't even get re-elected for his own seat in the Senate!
I'm praying Cheney stays in place, I'm dying to see these debates. Smackdown!
The NYSlimes - "Go %#@^ yourself."
"No Cheney, no Bush." That's my view.
Let's hear it for Mr. "Bigtime!"
If this is any example of Sabato's savy, his opinion is worthless. Dick Cheney is a heavyweight. John Edwards is a panty-waste. Sabato actually thinks John Edwards was a good choice? Lordy!
If anything the outhouse lost stature, when it expanded by an extra John. The new expanded outhouse is now behind by fifteen points in the state the new john cane from.
Here's a clue for you Sabato. If anything Bush should double Cheney's salary if at all possible. I'd sign him to a no-trade clause and give him a four year contract that would make the current basketball/baseball contracts look enemic.
Cheney should step down? He did that when he took the job Mr. Sabato. You don't make the kind of money Cheney did in the private sector unless you've got more on the ball than you give him credit for. Sure Edwards accumulated a lot of wealth, but he did so by taking producers to task.
Edwars is a parasite. He doesn't create anything or contribute to society. He merely leaches on to someone who does, and saps their ability to be productive. And you have the nerve to praise him over Dick Cheney.
God, are you out of touch with reality. If Newsmax is this hard up for writers, perhaps I should send them a few articles. Course I'm not willing to pay them to print my stuff.
The Dems are TERRIFIED of Cheney.
BUMP
Dick Cheney will absolutely dissect Pretty Hair Boy during the debate(s).
You know you have a great point.
I feel the same way as you do.
You know, as much as I want to see Bush run with Condi Rice, I respect the hell out of him for sticking with Cheney. It's one of his strengths that will stand him in good stead in the fall. Now if he does go with Condi, it's because Cheney really is having health problems.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Your neighbors must be those seminar Republican all my life BUT...callers from CSPAN, RUSH, etc.
I enjoy Larry Sabato, but...WRONG
Yeah-- the louder this crap comes at us, the more it makes me realize how MUCH of an asset Cheney is, and how scared the other side is of him. Rightly so. ;)
A better analysis of the mess that Bush's re-election campaign is in is that "Bush has blown it:". In which case, firing Cheney would be the cowardly thing to do, which is not Bush's style.
Sabato's complaints seem ill formed. Cheney being in hiding was only good sense until we had the terrorists on the run. And my opinion of Kissinger is not as high as his, nor was K. the vice president.
And as far as Cheney being combative, well two things need to be said about that: maybe that's what Bush wanted him to be, you know, the ol' "good guy, bad guy" ploy. And secondly, somebody had to be seen as fighting back, the "doormat" image the White House was projecting was a disgrace and a discouragement.
Dropping Cheney would NOT be like Roosevelt dropping Wallace for Truman in 1944. The mid-term elections in 1942 had been a disaster for the Democrats, and Wallace's projection was not strong enough to combat the complaints about how the war and industrial mobilization efforts were being run. Neither are the case here, the mid terms came out quite well for Bush, and Cheney conveys a very "stong on the war" image, which of course Edwards does not.
Truman, who had headed a Senate Committee looking into that very subject, was a natural response to those criticisms. Wallace's goverrmental background was in agriculture, and he was from Iowa, a farm state.
(Note, a rest stop along I-80 eastbound in central Iowa is named after him - it has a summary listing of his government service. Fortune magazine in the 1941-3 time frame make interesting reading about Roosevelt's election problems and deliberations.)
The fact that most of what Truman came up with was petty criticism, backstabbing of industrialists and "after the fact" carping did not get much coverage except in the industrial media. His committee, although it ran until long after the war and can be followed in some 39 voulmes (I think) of proceedings, which are of some historical interest in following industrial mobilization, I don't believe had any substantive or beneficial impact on the war effort.
Definitely you. But I'm a fast learner. :-}
Our mistake was diving with the French. :-}
I got a half a tank while everybody else had a full tank.
No biggie though, my dive partner was my wife. And we don't dive without our octupi, I think would be the plural.
But everybody should get the opportunity to suck on an empty tank at least once in a lifetime. It gets the mind focused and the adrenaline running. LOL
"Cheney's personal negatives are off the chart. He needs to feign some health problem and drop out."
Sabato is on Fox right not. Thinks Cheney doesn't have appeal to bring on a state pushing Ridge.
President Bush cutting Cheney right now would cause more harm than would help. John & John would make that their core campaign ad, it would be one and the same as President Bush admitting he made mistakes.
Don't fall for the braying about getting rid of Cheney. Dems would like nothing better because they FEAR his competence....especially when contrasted w/Kerry's pretty, inexperienced VP choice. Edwards is pretty inexperienced.
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