Condoleezza Rice Might Be Pursuing the VP Spot

By David Hinz

ABC News is reporting that Condoleezza Rice "is actively courting the Vice Presidential nomination, according to Republican Strategist Dan Senor."

Senor, best remembered for his role as chief spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, under Presidential Envoy L. Paul Bremer III, is a Republican Political Strategist with close ties to the Bush White House.

Senor told George Stephanopoulos, this morning, "Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this." He went on to say, "There's this ritual in Washington, the Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Grover Norquist, he holds a weekly meeting of conservative leaders, about 100, 150 people, sort of inside, chattering, class types. They all typically get briefings from political conservative leaders. Ten days ago, they had an interesting visit. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The first time a Secretary of State has visited the Wednesday Meeting."

According to her White House biography, Condi Rice has served three Presidents; Ronald W Reagan, George H W Bush and George W Bush. During the Reagan Administration:

In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender -- Integrated Training in the Military.

She served George H W Bush:

From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

Under George W Bush:

Dr. Condoleezza Rice became the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor, on January 22, 2001. On January 28, 2005, Dr Rice was sworn in as the 66th Secretary of State of the United States of America.

Dr Rice has served as Provost of Stanford University for six years, as well as on the Board of Directors of several distinguished and diverse American corporations. She is fluent in at least five languages. Born in the Jim Crow South, she demonstrated a brilliance at an early age.

Rice started learning French, music, figure skating and ballet at age three. At age 15, she began classes with the goal of becoming a concert pianist. Her plans changed when she realized that she did not play well enough to support herself through music alone. While Rice is not a professional pianist, she still practices often and plays with a chamber music group. Rice made use of her pianist training to accompany cellist Yo-Yo Ma for Brahms's Violin Sonata in D Minor at Constitution Hall in April 2002 for the National Medal of Arts Awards.

As a youngster, she experienced discrimination firsthand, and remembers quite well the 16th Street Sunday School bombing in 1963. In her own words:

I remember the bombing of that Sunday School at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. I did not see it happen, but I heard it happen, and I felt it happen, just a few blocks away at my father’s church. It is a sound that I will never forget, that will forever reverberate in my ears. That bomb took the lives of four young girls, including my friend and playmate, Denise McNair. The crime was calculated to suck the hope out of young lives, bury their aspirations. But those fears were not propelled forward, those terrorists failed.

Her father, a Presbyterian Minister, moved the family to Denver in 1967 where she attended St. Mary's Academy, a private all-girls Catholic High School. From Wiki:

Born November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, she earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, the University of Notre Dame in 1995, the National Defense University in 2002, the Mississippi College School of Law in 2003, the University of Louisville and Michigan State University in 2004. She resides in Washington, D.C.

Condoleezza Rice has often stated that she has no interest in running for political office. And yet, the rumors have persisted for more than four years that she would be on the short list for any Republican Presidential candidate in 2008. Senor's comments to Stephanopoulos will once again fan the flames of those rumors. Today Senor said, "What the McCain campaign has to consider is whether or not they want to pick a total outsider, a fresh face, someone a lot younger than him, a governor who people aren't that familiar with. The challenge they're realizing is that they'll have to have to spend 30-45 days, which they won't have at that point, educating the American public about who this person is. The other category is someone who people instantly say, the second they see that announcement, I get it, that person could be president tomorrow. Condi Rice is an option."

Talk about Ready on day One! Some Republicans have expressed concern that Rice holds too many moderate views to appease the Republican base. This should not, however be a concern for the "Maverick" John McCain.

Rice, in addition to her foreign relations credentials, is a strong Second Amendment advocate.

Segregation also hardened her stance on the right to bear arms; Rice has said in interviews that if gun registration had been mandatory, her father's weapons would have been confiscated, leaving them defenseless against Ku Klux Klan nightriders.

To suggest that I wholeheartedly support a Condoleezza Rice VP would be an understatement. I have been advocating just that outcome for more than two years. Evry time that I have suggested that possibilities, I have been told, "Don't hold your breath. She is not interested."

Well folks, if Dan Senor is correct, she might have changed her mind.