After prolonged coyness, George W. Bush has finally announced that he has tapped Richard B. Cheney, former George Bush defense secretary, to be on the Republican ticket. Bush had said he wanted a "forward-looking administration," but then picked one of Daddy's dinosaurs. Bush had once promised that his veep choice would be an "electrifying" one -- but the selection of Cheney seems more likely to cause a GOP power outage.
Conservatives as well as liberals have been setting off Cheney-bombs. Perhaps after a few more editorial meetings, conservative opinators will rally around Bush Sr.'s trusty stalwart, the Texas oil baron from Wyoming. But so far, they seem crestfallen. Before Cheney's selection became official, many writers continued to fantasize in print that the Cheney leak was a bait and switch -- and that Bush had finally convinced Colin Powell to join the ticket.
More prominently, though, Bush's second-guessers are busily worrying that Cheney's selection could be a political rightmare. Their complaints are many:
Cheney the Bore. National Review editor Richard Lowry calls Cheney "dull, and an uninspired campaigner," noting that Bush really gains little but stability by making such an unexciting pick. Similarly, on CBS's Face the Nation, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol said Bush's pick certainly signaled confidence, but further observed: "Maybe he's a little too confident. You know, those Independents are in play; McCain was the way to reach them."
Worse than boring, there's:
Cheney the Interminable Insider. The American Spectator's Wladyslaw Pleszczynski moaned, "going with a so-called national Republican pretty much removes every GOP governor from contention." This is a bad strategy for Bush, Pleszczynski argues, because it destroys his Washington-outsider angle.
In fact, liberals really don't need to brainstorm angles of attacking Cheney: Conservatives have already pointed the best of them out. Consider:
Cheney the Oily Texan. Cheney's big oil connections are a prime target for Al Gore's environmentalist populism, as more than one conservative has noted. Indeed, given Cheney's last few years as chief executive of the Dallas oil company Halliburton Co., Dems can legitimately allege that Republicans are running "Texas for President" on their ticket this year. The National Review Online, which is quite sore about Bush's choice, offered Gore this insightful nugget:
The biggest problem with Dick Cheney as Bush's running mate . . . can be seen on page A14 of today's New York Times. It's a picture, taken outside Cheney's townhouse in McLean, Va., and the former SecDef is sitting in an SUV after having backed his Mercedes into a garage door. He's apparently on his way to the airport, to fly to his home in Texas -- not his other home, in Wyoming -- where he heads an energy company. That's three homes in three time zones (one of them inside-the-Beltway), two ritzy cars, and one oil corporation during a time of soaring gas prices.
But no more helpful than Cheney's oil ties is this side of the elder Bush confidant:
Cheney the Wyomingite. Everybody's a hometown hero somewhere -- though with VP picks, the electoral influence of the hometown tends to matter most. And with this pick, the influence is as big as . . . the population of Wyoming. "We have never given up our claim to Dick Cheney. We are all tickled to death," Becky Constantino, of the Wyoming Republican Party, told the Los Angeles Times. Indeed, the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle reports today that Cheney's place on the ticket could be a big boost for the state's profile. Too bad the boost will probably be unidirectional.
Though Bush finally caved and chose an anti-abortion running mate, some conservatives still criticize Cheney for not being conservative enough. . .
Cheney the Moderate. Despite his anti-abortion views, conservative voting record, and supply-side philosophy, Cheney's selection "declares the Reagan chapter of the Republican Party's history not merely completed, but closed," bemoans the conservative Manhattan Institute's David Frum in today's New York Times. Cheney, it seems, is a Bushie, rather than a Reaganite, according to Frum, and hence not "someone whom the right wing of the Republican Party recognizes as one of its own."
But most critical is this angle on Cheney:
Cheney the Babysitter. The younger Bush's nomination of a VP from Daddy's cabinet, and one with much more government experience than he himself has, conjures images of W. out swinging on the monkey set while Cheney runs the country. (The image may not be too far off. Molly Ivins and Lou DuBose note that Governor Bush frequently took several hours off during the work day to work out and play video games.)
At least George W. didn't make his Dad's mistake of trying to please the ladies by picking the (supposed) hunk Dan Quayle. Dick Cheney's picture is not going up on any coed walls.
