1. I didn't know about Cheney's prognosis, but the thing about those life-expectancy tables is that they roll forward. The green-eyeshade guys will give a 77-year-old smoker about two years, maybe three. If they come back and check him in three years and he's still ambulatory and still smoking, they'll give him 18 months to two and a half years, something like that. They've always got a line on everything, like stockbrokers, but they roll with the punches and give you a second story every time -- like stockbrokers.
But I take your point. Looking to Beastproof the succession in 2008, Bush might put someone else on the ticket in 2004. But there are still a couple of problems with that.
a. Do you just dismiss Cheney? He has his own power base and his own constituency among what conservative political scientist James Q. Wilson once called the "audience", in order to distinguish the people that a politician really performs for, from the mooks who merely elect him. Cheney has a following in the upper reaches of the Wall Street Wing, and those guys, who made Bush, would have a lot to say about replacing Cheney. So would Cheney -- and his wife Lynne, who's a major player in her own right. The Cheneys are one of the heaviest-hitting couples in the country, along with the Doles, the Clintons, the Greenspans, the Schwarzeneggers, and (formerly) the Gramms and the Guilianis (when he was married to Donna Hanover) -- and I'm sure you could think of others.
b. I've seen evidences that Cheney has more real power than any VP in history, and that he may be a de facto prime minister, an unacknowledged head of government who shares Bush's responsibilities -- and authority. E.g., when the Niger-and-uranium story was under consideration for inclusion in the 2003 State of the Union address, it was Cheney's office that was vetting the story, and his office that called in the CIA. Why Cheney's people? Were they staffing the President? It was Bush's speech. Or did Bush just give it, like the Queen opening Parliament? Does enough power and functionality flow through Cheney's office, that it would be impracticable to replace him? b. Where do you go for Cheney's replacement? You have to keep Wall Street and the senior gray eminences happy. But at the same time, you have to have someone electable, someone (preferably) with a track record in campaigning. You wouldn't want another Dan Quayle. (Notwithstanding his good qualities, he was easy meat for the Left journopolemicists -- too easy.)
I think what Bush would do instead would be to campaign for reelection with Cheney again, and then let Cheney retire and Colin Powell be sworn in as VP. Putting Colin Powell in the Naval Observatory digs would be a direct attack on the shuck-and-jive crowd's stranglehold on the black vote.
And I wonder if they will spring it on us during the convention without any hints before hand.
I hope not. That would inculcate the idea that GOP conventions are just coronations and PR events -- and the networks would continue to drop coverage. That would be bad for a number of reasons: scandalization of the electorate, demoralization of the Party base (who might get to thinking that it might have been nice if they had at least been consulted), and so on.