I have a bone to pick with George W for not making Condoleeza rice his VP and Dick Cheney his NSA and always close confidant. Bush just left the Republican Party without a candidate in 2008 as your talk clearly indicates. Dole ? Cheney ? get a life guys...do you love humiliating defeat? I do not believe Giuliani has the right stuff to win a national election. I like him but Condoleeza Rice is a better and more deserving candidate.
Condaleeza Rice in her own words has defined herself as an "all over the map Republican". At the end of the day her positions on the issues would be no more palatable to the GOP base than Rudy's. Having said that, I think she has been a fine National Security Advisor and will be just as successful as Secretary of State.
I honestly think you would have to go all the way back to Eisenhower to find a candidate on a major party ticket who had never run for any kind of office before, statewide or national. This would be a serious impediment to any Rice candidacy regardless of where she stands on the issues. In the modern political era, with raising heaps and heaps of a requirement of any political campaign, I don't see how Rice makes a successful run. At this point, I couldn't even identify her base.
Does anyone even know if she is conservative? All I've seen is that she advises Bush in private and then goes public to support whatever decision he makes. That's admirable but doesn't tell us anything about her own positions.