Rice: Is "Mildly Pro-Choice" on Abortion
Yes, that's right. The President so often maligned as both zealously pro-life and utterly intolerant of dissent has chosen a Secretary of State who doesn't share his views on abortion:
Bill Sammon - March 12th, 2005 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday pointedly declined to rule out running for president in 2008, and gave her most detailed explanation of a "mildly pro-choice" stance on abortion.
In an interview with editors and reporters in the office of the editor in chief at The Washington Times, she said she would not want the government "forcing its views" on abortion.
Rice also refused to rule out a run for the Presidency in 2008.
Bill Sammon - March 12th, 2005 "I never wanted to run for anything — I don't think I even ran for class anything when I was in school," she said. "I'm going to try to be a really good secretary of state; I'm going to work really hard at it.
"I have enormous respect for people who do run for office. It's really hard for me to imagine myself in that role."
She was then pressed on whether she would rule out a White House bid by reprising Gen. William T. Sherman's 1884 declaration: "If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve."
"Well, that's not fair," she protested with a chuckle. "The last thing I can — I really can't imagine it."
Obviously her refusal to quell the mild groundswell of support her prospective candidacy is seeing is only encouraging such speculation. The Draft Condi movement lives to see another day. And Cafe Press rejoices.
The revelation in regards to abortion, however, is sparking some debate as to whether or not this helps or hurts that candidacy. It is obvious that her stance would hurt her chances in the Republican primaries, but would probably help her in the general election.
Rice, it seems to me, has a winning combination, politically: hawkish on defense, (presumably) conservative economically, and somewhat permissive on social issues. For better or worse, these kinds of stances, generally speaking, tend to win approval from the national electorate.
She may be a victim of her own success, though. However she may feel on other issues, it seems reasonable to conclude that the Bush doctrine is her primary issue, and probably always will be. If it's too successful over the next three years, will she have reason to run? Does she care enough about domestic issues to mount a campaign when the foreign policy objectives she cares the most about are already being achieved?
Even if many problematic regimes remain in place (which is likely), it's not implausible that Bush's foreign policy initiatives, if they continue to see success over the next few years, will have been successful enough to make continuing them a given for all nationally viable candidates in both parties in 2008.
If freedom continues to sprint around the globe, she may not feel motivated to run on the basis of a platform that has already been successfully adopted. Remember, this is (at least so far) a movement to recruit her for the Presidency. If her foreign policy fantasies have already begun to become reality, what could persuade her that the nation needs her to run?
UPDATE: DJ Drummond at PoliPundit has some slightly similar thoughts. Worth a read.
» March 12th, 2005
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