Cheney for President

I would vote for Dick Cheney in a second:

Should Dick Cheney run in 2012?

Rick Moran

Short answer; no. His well known heart problems would kill any chances of success. I seriously doubt questions about his health could ever be put to rest no matter how many doctors swore he was fit. Beyond that, there is no doubt that Cheney would make a great president. He would be the "Anti-Obama," possessing qualities exactly the opposite of our current president while outshining him in wisdom and fortitude.Leaving the health issue aside, could he win the nomination? Jon Meacham of Newsweek takes a serious look at why Cheney would be a good candidate:

Why? Because Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people. The best way to settle arguments is by having what we used to call full and frank exchanges about the issues, and then voting.

A contest between Dick Cheney and Barack Obama would offer us a bracing referendum on competing visions. One of the problems with governance since the election of Bill Clinton has been the resolute refusal of the opposition party (the GOP from 1993 to 2001, the Democrats from 2001 to 2009, and now the GOP again in the Obama years) to concede that the president, by virtue of his victory, has a mandate to take the country in a given direction. A Cheney victory would mean that America preferred a vigorous unilateralism to President Obama's unapologetic multilateralism, and vice versa.

Three years out, the GOP field does not offer a putative nominee. When Gallup polled on the Republican race for 2012, it asked about Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, and Haley Barbour (Huckabee won, with Romney and Palin tying for second among Republicans who were asked whom they would consider voting for). Cheney covers all the ground these folks do, and then some. (After Liz Cheney's remark on Fox News, a flood of subsequent e-mails asked her, "Where do I sign up?")

Meacham doesn't mention the health issue, and he makes some backhanded points about why Cheney should run. But there is little doubt that a Cheney trial balloon would set the GOP to talking and serious people would consider contributing time and money to his campaign.I don't think it likely at all. But who knows what condition the country will be in come 2012 and what kind of a president the American people will be looking for?You just never know in politics.
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