[Polonius]

I hope this is just a wild rumor ... Rice has never run for public office, seems to have adopted the wishy-washy State Department line on the Middle East and will give the Democrats more opportunity to turn the election into a referendum on the Bush administration. Beyond that, choosing Rice based on her skin color looks like, and is, pure pandering. If the Republicans try to play catch-up in the diversity competition, they’ll inevitably lose.

[TomGuy]

Rice has never run for public office, seems to have adopted the wishy-washy State Department line on the Middle East and will give the Democrats more opportunity to turn the election into a referendum on the Bush administration.

Rice on the ticket would feed in to Obama's (if he is the Dem nominee) allegations of Washington-as-usual politics. O's politics-of-change could resonate with many, many voters. McCain, himself, in the debates, has admitted that Washington is broken. A ticket with Washington insiders isn't going to fill voters with confidence that a ticket of Washington insiders is going to fix the problem.

Obama could definitively label McCain-Rice as the same old Washington politics and the GOP the same Grand OLD Party -- with OLD referring both to McCain's age and to McCain and Rice's Washington experience.