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Friday, January 30, 2015

Condi Rice For President?

I was looking over the long list of probable Republican presidential candidates, and I realized that none of them have any real foreign policy experience. With all that is going on and going wrong in the world today, that could be a disadvantage especially considering that the probable opponent will be ex-Secretary of State-you know who.

Of course, Hillary's tenure was marked by her visits to over 100 countries (So what?) and the debacle and subsequent cover-up of Benghazi. At least we won't have to worry about Hillary bringing back her infamous 3 o'clock in the morning ad.  She had that phone call and never answered it. In a perfect world it would have disqualified her from any future political office. Unfortunately, we live in a less than perfect world, and the reality is that Hillary will be formidable. Why I don't know, but she will be.

As things stand now, I see two successful governors as the most attractive candidates- John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin. They have the advantage of actually having run a political entity and run it well.

Still no foreign policy experience. (Marco Rubio, who I am also watching very closely, has served on the  Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In addition, of course, he brings a second language-Spanish- to the table.)

Which brings me to Condi Rice. As national security adviser and Secretary of State under George W Bush, she has that experience. In addition, she is a Russian scholar. While she has never run for any political office, her time in Washington has exposed her to the rough and tumble world of politics. There are no scandals in her background and no real baggage other than the left's opposition to her participation in Bush's foreign policies. So what? It's not like they are going to vote for any Republican.

Of course, I have no expectation that Rice would leave academia to return to the mad house in Washington. I have no idea how she would fare in debates or giving political campaign speeches. But if she did run, she would bring class and dignity to the race, not to mention a lot of pizzazz in a field dominated by establishment Republicans.

As it stands right now, I think if she did enter the race, I would choose her over the others.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some people love their slavery, they have strong opinions about who their new ruler should be. never mind the fact that our forefathers established a republic, relied on real law, not codes and statutes. Let's figure out how to fix this mess,return to a republic, make,distribute and use real money from our own treasury and eliminate federal reserve notes. Now that will get my attention.
Dennis

Siarlys Jenkins said...

I see two successful governors as the most attractive candidates- John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin. They have the advantage of actually having run a political entity and run it well.

How little you know. Scott Walker's method, as county executive, and as governor, has been to defer essential maintenance in order to "reduce spending and cut taxes," leaving to his successors a rather large bill that will have to be paid.

Its rather like a homeowner who ignores the fact that in the long run, one must plan to spend a certain percentage of a home's value each year maintaining the place, or it will someday crash around your ears, taking your investment with it.

Our great misfortune is that the Democratic Party doesn't know how to articulate this. They are too interested in crying "The Neanderthal reactionaries are coming!" -- which makes sense only to those voters who would never think of voting for Walker in the first place, and not even all of those.

America could do a lot worse than Condoleeza Rice. I hope it could do better, but we could do a lot worse. On the whole, I would prefer Rice to Clinton.

Siarlys Jenkins said...

I like federal reserve notes. They are legal tender accepted by every business I need to buy the necessities and comforts of life from.