The questions that won't go away for Condi Rice

[Batgirl]

As an outsider, I'd say she's a strong candidate to succeed Bush if she could be convinced that is... I wish we had someone of her calibre to rescue our Conservative party.


By Alec Russell in Birmingham, Alabama
(Filed: 24/10/2005)

Condoleezza Rice, the ultra-poised American secretary of state, has persistently said that she has no intention of running for the White House and that she expects people to believe her.

All weekend, as she roamed her home state of Alabama with her guest Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, she fended off questions about her future.

When a girl asked the question on a visit to her old school she looked weary before flashing her famous smile and saying: "I don't want to run for office but that doesn't mean some of you can't."

She tells friends that to run for the presidency you need to "want it" and that she does not want it.

Yet still the question remains and her denials are not convincing enough to rule out the possibility that she may yet seek the ultimate political double of becoming America's first black and first woman president.

The murmur of grassroots support for her is ever present, while with President George W Bush in some difficulties, attention in Washington is shifting to his successor, and the Republicans have no obvious candidate.

To a casual eye her three-day visit, which focused on her home town, Birmingham, had more in common with the exploratory trips of a prospective politician than the routine of the world's most powerful diplomat.

Two things were abundantly clear: she would be brilliant at "retail politics" and her personal "narrative" is an image-maker's dream.

At a dress-down dinner on Saturday at Jim N' Nicks, a typical southern barbecue joint, she chatted animatedly, exuding the charm that has helped to rescue American diplomacy from the doldrums of Mr Bush's first term. The menu favourites, catfish and pulled pork, were hardly the standard fare of the Washington elite. With many politicians, the meal would have been terribly staged.

But Miss Rice is not your average politician. She is a technocrat rather than a politician, having, as she reminded her audiences, unlike Mr Straw, never run for office.

American officials described the trip as the model for a new form of public diplomacy and said that other foreign ministers would tour the US with Miss Rice. One said: "The trips will all have their unique character. This is intended to help to show a different side of America."

For Mr Straw's aides it was the chance for him to have extended "face time" with Miss Rice. It was also possibly the most unusual tour of his tenure.

Both ministers were genuinely moved as relatives of four girls murdered by a white extremist bomb at Birmingham's 16th Baptist Church in September 1963 recalled the event.

One of the dead, Denise McNair, was a friend of Miss Rice.

"We played with dolls together," Miss Rice said. "As God would have it, they were at Sunday school when America experienced home grown terrorism of the worst sort. Sometimes when I think of them I wonder what they would be doing today."

Her personal link was clearly a bona fide reason for her presence. But what is less clear is why she devoted three days to the trip when she has one of the world's busiest timetables. Since taking up her post in January she has logged far more miles than any of her predecessors.

Also, it is very unusual for a secretary of state to devote so much time to a domestic trip. Her predecessors tended to travel in the US only to deliver foreign policy speeches.

Yet over this weekend she has discussed technology at the University of Alabama to show how the South was trying to shed its backward reputation, chatted with schoolchildren and presided over the pre-game toss of the coin at a game of American football, her favourite sport.

At each event she was treated like a rock star. She would clearly be a "natural" at stump politics. Friends suggest however that the experience of Colin Powell, her predecessor, who considered running in the mid-Nineties, is not lost on her. Under pressure from his wife, who feared the relentless media spotlight, he decided against it.

She has said that America is ready for a woman president. Arthur Price, the pastor of the 16th St Baptist Church, however, has some sober advice. He said that she would be a strong candidate but that America was not ready for a black leader.

"She is a symbol of what can be," he said. "I think America has come a long way. It is ready for a black candidate and will one day be ready for a black president - but not yet."

Telegraph

[Brad]

She has said that America is ready for a woman president. Arthur Price, the pastor of the 16th St Baptist Church, however, has some sober advice. He said that she would be a strong candidate but that America was not ready for a black leader.

"She is a symbol of what can be," he said. "I think America has come a long way. It is ready for a black candidate and will one day be ready for a black president - but not yet."

This is nonsense. Most Americans are about ideas, not about skin color. But, there are a few, like this pastor apparently, who are stuck in the skin-tone dominant politics of the 1960's.

As to Ms. Rice, I respect her in every way and admire the job she has done in her roles in the Bush adminstration. I don't know, however, whether she would be good Presidential material or not. As she says, she has never run for anything. That's obviously not a requirement, but we've had precious few Presidents who had held no previous political office. She also has never been the head of any organization. Not a company President, not a general, etc. In her current position, she is less of a leader than she is the mouthpiece of the President. As was Colin Powell, who spoke the President's words and not his own as Secretary of State.

She has risen to the top in everything she has done, and I have little doubt she could do so in politics too. But she hasn't shown any political leadership, per se, yet, for all her other obvious qualities.

[Covertness]

I'd vote for Condi for President. She would make an excellent POTUS. She also might be our only savior in the face of hillary klinton.

[Grimmy]

As far as not having run for office before that could actually be a good thing. It is said the professional politicos have to sell their souls to rise above city council level.

It would be interesting to have someone run for President of the US of A that hasnt been churned thru that "dont actually stand for anything or do more than imply everything" mill that professional politics has alwase been.

It'd also be fun to watch the libers fall all over themselves trying to defame her without showing their true hard corps racizm.