[Irish Rose]

Have at it, folks - 2008, President Bush, Dick Cheney, the vice presidency and presidency in general.

[KantianBurke]

Interesting article. Not sure I fully agree with its conclusion however.

[BlueOneGolf]

www.GoHunter08.com

[JohnLongIsland]

It has fostered insularity at the White House and closed off an important avenue of influence to the president that has encouraged him to take a "go it alone" attitude, which is bad both for the country and the Republican Party.


What's the alternative, consulting al quedas ally, the democrat party?

[gov_bean_ counter]

IIRC, Cheney lobbied hard for Paul O'Neil at Treasury. Bad move. Not a fan of tax cuts. In addition was bailed out by as CEO of Alcoa when Bill Clinton brokered a deal between Alcoa and Marc Rich to allow Alcoa to get raw materials at reasonable prices when no body else could get product period.

I believe O'Neil was an early off the record source for anti-Bush stories early in the administration.

[Kevmo]

I've been saying that Bush should ask Cheney to resign for health reasons and nominate Duncan Hunter for VP. Even if DH doesn't get ratified, the publicity will put him in tier1, and Bush manages to give the party a clear direction. It would be an appointment worth more than the supreme court.

[BlueOneGolf]

OOPS!! Fixed it!

www.GoHunter08.com

[Txsleuth]

First of all...the wackos in the USA hate Cheney more than they do Bush...

Second of all...anyone that Bush would want to be in Cheney's place wouldn't make anyone happy anyway.

Have you read the threads around here??? Bush is about as popular on FR as Hillary on most of them.

[DTogo]

The whole Bush entourage needs to go.

[quantim]

Usually, it has a clear frontrunner going into the process

That's just plain MSM speak trying to invent news. If there is a 'clear frontrunner' why bother to even hold the primaries?

It's not even March 2007 fer' Pete's sake.

[FreePoster]

Republican Party has a huge problem going into 2008. Usually, it has a clear frontrunner

Duncan Hunter. Problem solved. Clear enough to me. RINO's don't count.

[Bean Counter]

It just goes to show, it's always sumpthin!

[RichInOC]

Folks, name a vice president in recent times, regardless of party, who got elected president as an incumbent veep. Poppy Bush is it.

[nowandlater]

As they say in college football, "when you have two starting quarterback, you have no starting quarterback." Incredibly, every candidate in the top-tier is uniquely flawed--it's going to be incredibly hard for any one them to unite the party. I predict it is going to be a historical slug-fest.

Rudy, McCain, Newt, and Mitt are going to be the only choices. The early primary means that those with money are the only ones who are going to be viable. Newt stating that we will wait to the fall to decide is killing the 2nd tier candidates; Newt is freezing the field of lesser competitors making it difficult for them to raise money and to get traction.

Rudy does well because of McCain collapse. The better Rudy does the worse McCain will do and Rudy is golden on the WOT issue. Also, the better Newt does, the worse Romney will do and that is why I think Mitt is doing early advertisement because he knows Newt is going to wait--Mitt's only hope is to get some traction early.

With that being said, I don't see any of these candidates uniting the party. I would hope Mitt does it, but I think I see Mitt has an extra burden placed on him--all politicians flip flop, but if you don't like a politician for other reasons (religion), you just are even more eager to emphasize this symptom of all politicians (come on, he ran for Massachussets! You have to make some distasteful concessions to win!). Rudy's liberal positions will hurt him with Social Conservatives. McCain will never reconcile himself with the activist base. And finally Newt, while looked at favorably, is burdened unfairly by the media image and some hard to explain in the sound-bite era of personal-life issues. Yikes!

Personally, I think Mitt's issues are the easiest to overcome, because I think historically if one flips to the positions that the base wants they have always forgiven and accepted those kinds of changes.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

Cheney 2008

[WFTR]

One big problem with this entire line of thought is that part of the reason President Bush could be elected is that Dick Cheney didn't drive away Republican voters. Many of us don't want the party to become what Rudy Giuliani or John McCain would make it. If someone like one of them had been the Vice-President, maybe President Bush wouldn't have won in 2000 or 2004. We could unite to win then because we didn't have to face this debate at that time.

Another big problem with this line of thought is the mistaken belief that a tough primary hurts a candidate. The truth is that the most successful candidates in the general election often come from tough primaries. The last really big primary comeback was in 1992 when Bill Clinton absorbed some early losses to win the nomination. That hard-fought primary gave the Democrats eight years in the White House. Before that, one of the biggest primary comebacks was in 1980 when Ronald Reagan came back after losing early primaries. He went on to a big win that kept the Republicans in the White House for 12 years and arguably for 20 of the last 28 years.

The problem for the Republicans will not be a tough primary. The problem will only be the failure to find a good candidate. I haven't seen a candidate who shows that strength, but having a weak candidate as the heir apparent in the V.P. position wouldn't solve the problem either.

Bill

[WOSG]

President Dick Cheney ... It works for me!

[Dahoser]

To write an article about Cheney not being a candidate in 2008 and failing to make even a passing mention that his health may be a factor in the non-candidacy is simply amazing.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

This writer starts with a fallacious assumption that Cheney is a "Yes" man and that all Presidential cabinets are filled with "Yes" men who fear losing their positions.

I think this is incorrect. The President is the captain of a team. He puts that team together. He picks people who can get done what he asks them to (with some attention being paid to the network of each appointee), who generally agree with his policies, and who, when they disagree, do so in a way that perfects a plan, not countermands it.

This is far different from "yesmanism" which is nothing more than the pretension of sycophants going along with what they may think is wrong and doing so mainly for their own benefit.

I don't think Cheney is a Yesman and I disagree with the writer's conclusion, which is a veiled attack on the President. I think Bush has cared too much about including his political opponents in his decisions and in the execution of those decisions, that they saw this as a weakness, and like the hyenas they are, they swarmed in on him when they smelled blood.

[Democratshavenobrains]

Why are there so many whiny wimps crying about a contested primary? I wasn't alive in 1980, but from what I know, it was a bitter fight between Reagan and Bush and probably a few others. And we came out better for it.

[gridlock]

I understand the problem outlined here, but I think that the wide-open Republican primary will more than make up for any weakness caused.

This is a good thing. The Republicans need this fight in order to define the soul of their party. We need to decide what is central, and what is peripheral.

To my mind, the Republicans need to define themselves as the party of small government, fiscal restraint and national security. Full stop. That's it.

Everything else should be dropped.