COMMENTARY | The sterling performance of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a meeting of Mitt Romney supporters in Utah, as reported by ABC News, has spurred speculation she might be asked to become Romney's running mate.
Constitution Daily lays out the advantages of Rice on the ticket. She is a black woman with Cabinet level experience with a proven expertise in foreign and defense policy. She has a compelling life story of having grown up in the segregated South. In many ways she is complimentary to Romney's white bread persona and mainly domestic policy experience.
Rice has said many times she does not desire elected office. It is uncertain whether being asked directly by her party's presumptive nominee would overcome that reluctance.
Rice has another advantage that will play into the weaknesses of President Barack Obama and his supporters and would drive them crazy. The first weakness is to blame their failures on George W. Bush. The second is a near total hypocrisy where it concerns racism.
One can almost hear the outcries coming from the Obama campaign should Romney ask Rice to be his running mate and should she accept. It's the return of the Bush administration! It's the return of all of those failed policies of the past!
The problem is many of those "failed" policies, including the tax cuts and various strategies for waging the war on terror have after having been denounced by Obama, were retained and even enhanced by President Obama. Guantanamo Bay is still open. Most of the Patriot Act is still in force. Drones and teams of special operations forces are still hunting down terrorists.
The Obama campaign would be distracted running against President Bush in apparent blissful ignorance that it is running against Romney. This disconnect will be noticed by the electorate.
The other weakness is the tendency of some liberals to act like Klansmen when the target of their ire is a conservative, as manifest by an ugly, racist cartoon published depicting Rice as a stereotyped black maid. The same people who denounce any criticism of the president as racist will be over the top in their racist attacks against Rice. Sadly, this might mitigate against her accepting the No. 2 spot. No one should suffer the aggravation.
