Posted on 04/27/2009 5:02:31 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Watching Dick Cheney defend the Bush administration’s interrogation policies, it’s been hard to escape the impression that both the Republican Party and the country would be better off today if Cheney, rather than John McCain, had been a candidate for president in 2008.
Certainly Cheney himself seems to feel that way. Last week’s Sean Hannity interview, all anti-Obama jabs and roundhouses, was the latest installment in the vice president’s unexpected – and, to Republican politicians, distinctly unwelcome – transformation from election-season wallflower into high-profile spokesman for the conservative opposition. George W. Bush seems happy to be back in civilian life, but Cheney has taken the fight to the Obama White House like a man who wouldn’t have minded campaigning for a third Bush-Cheney term.
Imagine for a moment that he’d had that chance. Imagine that he’d damned the poll numbers, broken his oft-repeated pledge that he had no presidential ambitions of his own, and shouldered his way into the race. Imagine that Republican primary voters, more favorably disposed than most Americans to Cheney and the administration he served, had rewarded him with the nomination.
At the very least, a Cheney-Obama contest would have clarified conservatism’s present political predicament. In the wake of two straight drubbings at the polls, much of the American right has comforted itself with the idea that conservatives lost the country primarily because the Bush-era Republican Party spent too much money on social programs. And John McCain’s defeat has been taken as the vindication of this premise.
We tried running the maverick reformer, the argument goes, and look what it got us. What Americans want is real conservatism, not some crypto-liberal imitation.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And most likely Texas.
Cheney's heart would have been an issue that could not have been overcome.
There was a major terrorist attack, it was financial. The terrorist have just become more effective at destroying us, they are very patient and success depends on demonizing those who are defending us against them. That would be the willing accomplices from the left.
What Republican politicians is this fool talking about?
John McCain's idiotic, retarded daughter?
Cheney has been the most effective Republican politician since the Marxist African dictator, Comrade Obama, took over the reigns of power.
Actually, not only conservatives but the whole country are getting their "jolt" right now. The Messiah is going to jolt everyone into realizing just how dangerous government by liberals is to the country's security, prosperity and freedom. The answer won't be liberal lite or country club Republicanism, it will be Reaganism.
Exactly!
Thank you for pointing that out.
I think it was Cheney’s precarious health that moved him not to attempt to run.
Dang, this guy is singing my song.
The prevailing wisdom was that no one would have voted for anyone from the Bush administration, so we had to go with McCain, the anti-Bush.
I think the opposite, that we needed someone who could give an articulate defense of basic common sense values, and that is something McCain could never do. Cheney, on the other hand, could do it, does do it every time he opens his mouth, and he makes it look easy.
Imagine if we had run an adult who actually understood economics, and energy policy, and foreign policy, and military policy... and could actually and forthrightly explain them and defend them.
It was a mistake to run away from Bush-Cheney, what we needed was Cheney unfiltered by Bush.
I know, I’m as worried about Cheney’s ticker as the next guy. But I don’t see anyone out there with Cheney’s grit and his gift for explaining and persuading and defending and for boldly getting things done. And no one can match him for experience and understanding of the way the world works.
So, still worried about his ticker? Team him with Hunter for VP. Bolton at State. Palin at Interior. Petraeus at Defense.
He is part od the Kathleen Parker, David Frum, Chris Buckley school of punk ex-conservatives.
Thank you-thank you!
I was wondering when someone would state the reason he did not run. Health concerns stopped that early too. Reagan’s health concerns were very openly discussed at that time.
Many people wanted him to step down after the first term and “groom” a candidate for 2008. Bush did not want that.
Hunting accident, Haliburton and all the other things he took the blame for under Bush would have been exploited. Can you imagine the grin on James Carville if Dick Cheney had tried to run!
Do not misunderstand me...I think Dick Cheney is great!
Wow, that would have been some “slate”!
Absolutely Dick Cheney is great. And as a previous poster has already said, he’d be a failure as a candidate (not because of his campaign ability but because of things basically beyond his control) but a great president.
Thank god nothing happened to President Bush while in office (I say that even though I am a critic of his), but if the worst HAD happened we would have SEEN what a great President Cheney would have been.
I had not thought of it that way...you are right.
Assassination, illness or accident never worried me as to the continuity of the government under Cheney. Especially in thinking about the WAR!
Biden does not inspire that type of thought. He would be SOOOOOOO lost!
I hate Biden. I think of Biden as I do a piece of stale chewing gum I can’t scrape off the bottom of my shoe.
But I’d rather have Biden than what we have now. Rather by a thousandfold.
I was afraid to say that but totally agree.
In a Cheney-Obama contest, Cheney would definitely have sliced and diced Obama in the debates, and it would have been glorious to have beheld, but none of it would have changed the outcome of the race. We simply would have been fed more photos of Obama by the media, and the modern American voter still would have voted for the cool looking black guy over the cranky old white guy.
He’s got my vote today.
What a step up from McCain.
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