Posted on 03/22/2005 7:18:40 AM PST by The Great Yazoo
With a smile, following our interview on CNBC last week, Vice President Dick Cheney said, “That was a trick question.” I responded, also with a smile, “That’s why I asked it, sir.”
What was the question? Simply this: “If the president asked you, would you reconsider your door closing on a race in 2008?”
Here’s Cheney’s answer:
I've made it very clear, Larry, that my tour here is tied to [George W. Bush]. I agree[d] to come back to government. I’ve had a great 25-year career. He persuaded me to come back after eight years in the private sector. I’ve loved it — hadn’t regretted it for a minute — but I’m here to serve him as long as he serves. … I think if I were a candidate, then you’d begin to get the traditional divisions … inside the West Wing, the president headed down one road and the vice president worried about how he’s being received in Ottumwa, Iowa, and the Iowa caucuses four years hence. It doesn’t work that way … It’s worked very well for us. I’m absolutely committed to doing everything I can to help him succeed, but I’m also committed four years from now. I don’t plan to be here. I’m going to be out on the road or back with my grandkids or fishing streams I’ve not yet fished. Does Cheney leave the door open just a teensy bit for a 2008 run? The sentence arguing for this option is, “He persuaded me to come back after eight years in the private sector.” Could Cheney be persuaded again? I wish it were possible. But Cheney does seem set on casting his fly rod four years from now.
That’s a pity. During the interview I brought up a prescient and potentially prophetic column in the Wall Street Journal by Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations. In it, he coined a new term: Cheney envy. You have to be a special sort of vice president to earn such praise. Cheney, of course, has been instrumental in promoting freedom and democracy abroad, but he’s also been a key player in selling supply-side tax cuts, personal savings accounts for Social Security, legal-abuse tort reform, energy reform, and other market-oriented policies at home. His partnership with President Bush is legion. And the scope of their transformational reform administration is itself almost unsurpassed. In the last hundred years, only the FDR reforms have been greater.
Ironically, it is precisely the FDR New Deal reforms that Bush and Cheney are attempting to reconstruct. They want the New Deal to fit a 21st century paradigm that substitutes free-market choice and personal responsibility for Roosevelt’s Depression-era over-regulated capitalism.
But when you see leading Republican Senators and House members move off the reservation of personal-account Social Security reform — when you see them flinch on even the mildest budget restraints for overspending entitlements — you wonder if the Bush-Cheney reform-legacy will stand the test of time.
There is a disappointing parallel here. George H. W. Bush was elected to a third Reagan term to guard the Gipper’s legacy of tax-rate cuts, deregulation, and the exportation of political and economic freedom abroad. But Papa Bush disappointed by raising taxes at home and doing business with dictators overseas. Realism trumped idealism on foreign policy. Seeing Saddam Hussein retain power in Baghdad was the worst example of this.
It is highly doubtful that a President Cheney would repeat such errors in a third W. term. First off, Cheney’s basic belief system has been set in stone for more than three decades. Second, he is a highly effective communicator, having trounced Joe Lieberman and John Edwards during the vice presidential debates. Third, Cheney possesses one of the widest and deepest knowledge-bases of government policy of anyone in Washington today. His ability to get things done — often amidst fractious debates on domestic and international policy — is well documented.
This is the true source of Cheney envy. It has frequently been observed that the Republicans have all the good ideas nowadays and that the Democrats have virtually none. But you’d be correct if you said Bush and Cheney not only generated these ideas, but also put them into action.
Does anyone seriously doubt that Cheney is the most qualified person, in either party, to be our next president? Any number of early Republican hopefuls — Frist, Allen, Giuliani, McCain, Romney — would look good riding the bus with Cheney in a few years. The Cheney for President bus, that is.
I hope President Bush asks Vice President Cheney to succeed him. For four more years.
— Larry Kudlow, NRO’s Economics Editor, is host of CNBC’s Kudlow & Company and author of the daily web blog, Kudlow’s Money Politic$.
Larry needs to get a grip....this ain't happening. I don't even expect the President to ask it of this man who clearly wants to retire.
I think that it is wishfull thinking - and thats ok for a columnist.
I'd vote for Cheney if he were nothing more than a brain in a jar.
Qualified, and electable, are two totally different things. Don't ever forget it.
I'd love to see him as President in 2008, but if the Dems nominate anyone with an ounce of media charisma, we'd be toast.
But VP Cheney has lots of charisma himself. It would just have to be brought to light more.
I really, really would love to see him run. Of all possible picks at this point, hands down Cheney is the strongest and best candidate. I know it's somewhat of a longshot, but I hope he reconsiders.
I agree. I might not have if I didn't witness the VEEP debate. There was no contest in who was more presidential. Edwards for all his southern charm couldn't match the gravitas of Vice President Cheyney.
I'm with ya, Great Yazoo. Cheney would be a FANTASTIC followup to GWB.
Cheney will completely dismantle the shrill, butt ugly Hillary in a debate.
LOL
Whitewater vs Haliburton....
media can't slime him without her closet being cleaned out for her....
This story reminded me of your coining of the terms "POTUS envy" and "VPOTUS envy" last month. :^)
I would have liked a role reversal back in 2000 for the first term, and then had him hand things off to W in 2004. I've always liked Dick Cheney, and when he tore thru Lieberman in the VP debates, that was solidified.
LOL! I'd forgotten about that. If he runs (which I seriously doubt) remind me again. We could get some mileage out of it during the campaign.
...especially if Hillary were running against him! :)
I think Cheney can be a riot, and has lots of charisma, but not the 'right kind'...it's hard to be specific, but I guess I mean he's too true and too smart to play the game without adding enough nods and winks to show us that he's just clowning, playing down to the crowd.
Bush is sincere when he speaks, and even Clinton was a genuine fake. But Cheney, like Rumsfield, is a player, unable to tell the lies that matter.
I think the eventual GOP candidate is not among anyone that has indicated they might run, nor is it among anyone the media, us or most in the GOP now think of as possible candidates. I think 2008 will bring out someone who will be thinking outside the box. I think they will be supporting a set of strong American values, but they will have some bold policy approaches to advancing those values. But, I think events in 2006 and 2007 will demonstrate where, in which policy areas, the emphasis is needed most. I think they sit somewhere in the GOP now and see the events, and the needed emphasis, turning in some direction, as their thoughts develope policy responses to those coming events. While others are swatting at the flies of the minutia of todays events, they are looking ahead. If things unfold as they think they will, they will stand up and be noticed in 2006 and 2007.
I don't think I understand your post. ("unable to tell the lies that matter")
The way I see it is that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney have charm, wit, and integrity. Their styles of delivery are different, but they are not the same person.
Yeah...I went off to make coffee and realized it read bad.
By 'lies that matter' I mean gloss over things with sincerity. A quality Cheney shares with Rumsfield, but one I find hard to define...maybe his happy defence of his daughter against charges of 'deviance' could serve as an example? I just don't think he's willing to bullsh*t or play sincere in support of a position he doesn't favor.
My post wasn't meant as a criticism of Bush, but mopre an observation on what it takes to be an electable president.
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