Too bland and curmudgeony. I vote for Jack Kemp. Sound on policy and a great supplement to the "compassionate conservatism" schtick.
Sound on policy as the day is long; he wrote after the 1980 election that the government should sell gold in a big way. Price was high at the time, how do you argue with success? And the Kemp-Roth bill was a revolution in its time; we're all Laffer Curve proponents now but in the seventies Kemp was a pretty lonely voice for tax-rate sanity.He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on the "compassion" front, tho--by accepting Gore's personal flattery at the expense of the reputation of the Republican Party's base. As VP candidate his objective should have been to position the Republican voter favorably--instead he allowed Gore to do the opposite. It was a pathetic performance which wrote finis to his hopes for elective national office.
And he does not suffer fools gladly; were GWB to name Kemp it would amount to signing off on whatever Kemp wanted to do. It would not however be unlike W to name such a person, if indeed he was in full agreement with Kemp's policy prescriptions. Kemp has gravitas, like the rest of the administration.
For myself, I'd name Steve Forbes and go hard over for the flat tax. I'd sell the lack of a mortgage interest deduction with the point that the interest deduction simply balances out the tax premium the market gives the mortgage holder, above the tax-free bond interest rate. So you'd have to refinance (once) and be clear of the need for itemizing mortgage interest, unharmed.
And I'd sell the removal of the charitable deduction on the basis that it would free the charities from government restrictions (i.e., no politics in church) imposed on tax-deductible charities at present.