Revisiting the possibility of a Rice ticket in 2008

Marcus Mabry, author of Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power, told CFR that "it would be very hard for" U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "turn down" the chance to run for president or vice president. Mabry, Newsweek magazine's chief of correspondents, says that Republican insiders are already eyeing Rice, particularly as a possible VP candidate.

I mentioned Mabry's book a couple of weeks ago, writing about the relations between President Bush and Rice and comparing them to those of Prime Minister Olmert and Foreign Minister Livni. "The U.S. secretary of state serves the president as long as the president wants him or her; the Israeli minister is an independent creature who can suggest to the prime minister that he resign from his job."

But even more interesting in the context of a possible Rice ticket is her relations with Israel. And in this case, slowly but gradually, Rice is the one now playing the traditional role of state secretary: representing the more hopeful (or naive) party in the administration, the one that's still thinking there's a chance for a breakthrough in the Israeli-Arab peace process. The so-called "benchmarks" suggested by her people - and rejected by Israel - were one form of the recently growing distance between Rice's position and Israel's.

The possibility of a Rice ticket is not a new one. When we started our Israel Factor project Rice was one of the ranked candidates until we dropped her from the list (we thought there were no signs that she was going to run). And she wasn't doing very well - our panel watched her opinions and actions evolve and didn't like it. In mid-January we asked: Why did The Israel Factor panelists downgrade Rice? The answer was complicated, but worth repeating:

"We presented the panel with a series of questions that could explain the drop in their estimation [of Rice] and we asked them to reply with a number from 1 to 5 (1 shows that the issue had no influence and 5 shows that it had a great deal of influence on the change in the grade). Various panelists gave different answers about what's bothering them, so there is no alternative but to assume that Rice is just a miserable victim of circumstances. The panelists who are worried by the possibility of American pressure on the Palestinian issue lowered her grade because they believe that some of her statements show she is over-committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Others, who really have no diplomatic problem with Rice or with a certain amount of American pressure, lowered her grade because their estimation of President Bush is very low and her loyalty to his policy causes them to doubt her intelligence."

What would have happened had we kept Rice on the list? I called two of the panelists today and asked them this question (they do not necessarily represent the views of the other panelists) and the reply I got didn't surprise me: they don?t think her ranking would have changed for the better- probably the opposite is true. (The survey with the specific questions on Rice is here).


And on a more personal note: I thank all the readers who bothered to congratulate me via talk-back and mail on the birth of my daughter.