Newt or Condi; McCain one term
by Bob Hoig, Publisher
Midlands Business Journal
With time growing short, we renew our call made last May for John McCain to pick either Newt Gingrich or Condoleezza Rice as his vice presidential running mate.
And we add a request that because of the age factor, McCain pledge himself to serving one term and groom one of these two great communicators to succeed him.
Gingrich and Rice are experienced in domestic and foreign affairs, and thus would make a great complement to McCain.
Both have fine minds and laudable records of public service.
Gingrich authored the Contract with America, which returned the GOP to control in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 after 40 years of increasingly seedy and greedy rule by Democrats.
He is a natural organizer and, in fact, leads a large, Internet-connected group centered on a “drill here, drill now” energy policy.
With less than 100 days to the election, having a running mate who is the modern era’s best communicator of conservative values and who just happens to have a potent organization already in place could be of great help to McCain as he heads into the showdown with Barack Obama.
Secretary of State Rice is a woman who, like Gingrich, can defend Republican principles.
As an attractive African-American woman of the highest character and probity, she brings to McCain’s ticket an effective rejoinder to Barack Obama on race and record and she would more than offset Hillary Clinton or any woman Obama might pick on gender.
Interestingly, a poll taken in New York while Clinton and Obama were battling it out last spring showed a McCain-Rice ticket beating any combination of Obama and Clinton by 5 percentage points.
A one term pledge by McCain makes sense. He is 72 now and would be 76 running for reelection. With America’s existence menaced by a worldwide terrorist jihad and by rogue dictators bent on getting nuclear weapons, our country needs McCain’s wide experience right now.
Honoring a one term pledge, he would have four years to groom Gingrich or Rice for 2012.
July 2008
