05/06/2002 Archived Entry: "US Senate and the first woman VP"

A great article on Sanders here in the New Yorker, and I've updated the US Senate 2002 webpage. I like Sanders' shot in SC, this sums it up well:

He is considered an underdog in the race to replace Thurmond; his opponent, Representative Lindsey Graham, is formidable. South Carolina is a Republican state. But Sanders's success or failure hardly seems the point—and Graham is almost an afterthought. The real contest here is between an American archetype, the cracker-barrel fabulist, and the consultant-driven sterility of the current political system.

Rice has been hawked around as Bush's next VP for a while not by the liberal global expansionists like Ruffini and Kristol, and this Guardian article is more of the same. I especially got a kick out of her "holier-than-thou" quote she kicked in for her European audience:

"I am a realist," she said recently, describing her stance on global conflict. "Power matters. But there can be no absence of moral content in American foreign policy, and furthermore, the American people wouldn't accept such an absence. Europeans giggle at this and say we're naive and so on, but we're not Europeans, we're Americans - and we have different principles."

While the idea of a black woman from the segregated south becoming a conservative vice-president is irresistible to the press, the reality is that Rice is a foreign-policy wonk. She has never publicly declared a domestic agenda, nor held elective office. Although the Democrats would cry foul, Kristol says a Bush/Rice ticket is too brilliant an idea for the president to ignore.

She fits right in with the social conservatives, and to boot, she's stuck in the 50's mentality, just like dubya. Kristol may be right, and the Democrats would have to respond in kind. The woman that Gore might wind up pairing up with, would be the one that was whispered as the most likely choice amongst women VP contenders in 2000.

KKT came up short then, basically because her resume was not strong enough, but as a sitting Gov in 2004, that might change. She balances out Gore really well: The addition of Townsend to the Democratic ticket would spark interplay between these two opposing views. Townsend’s authenticity would broaden Gore’s perspective and promote a more enlightened social agenda for the Democratic party.

Look at this, in 2000 Arianna Huffington stated the possible 2004 line-up: "We need someone who is alive. A passionate speaker who can liven up the ticket." Huffington said. "Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Lt. Governor of Maryland, would make a good VP. George Bush needs an African American."