Cheney's future is Washington's current topic
Brian Knowlton/IHT
Thursday, February 19, 2004
WASHINGTON Vice President Dick Cheney, a man who has cultivated an unblinking image of stern secretiveness and unshakeable discretion, is expected to become far more visible as a campaigner in this presidential election year. Assuming, that is, that he remains on the presidential ticket. "The campaign season is under way," Cheney said recently, "and President Bush and I will be proud to present our vision to voters in every part of this great land."
The White House has said that American voters will see more of the low-profile Cheney this year, and not less.
But while it would fly in the face of history, and what is known of President George W. Bush, to drop a vice president after one term, Cheney has found himself mired in controversy on a variety of fronts. That has made speculation about his political future a suddenly hot topic in this speculation-loving city. Political scientists and observers here say they fully expect Bush, who vaunts loyalty as one of the highest virtues, to stick with Cheney. Their caveat is that Cheney's well-known heart problems could change things, though the health of the vice president, who is 63, is said to be sound at present. "He's got the respect of the president," said Stephen Wayne, a political scientist at Georgetown University in Washington. A change now could raise damaging speculation about problems in the White House, he said. And in sum, Wayne added, "He's not a drag on the ticket."
Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University, generally agreed. "My assumption now is that Cheney will remain on the ticket," he said. Cheney, after all, remains a man of deep experience in Washington: as a congressman, defense secretary to the first President Bush and chief of staff to President Gerald Ford. He has been deeply involved in White House policy-making, so much so that in the early days of the administration there were waggish cracks about his being a "shadow president."
But some Republicans are said now to be questioning quietly whether Cheney has become more ballast than lift in a presidential contest that might end up being more competitive than had seemed likely only months ago. Cheney's persona - unemotional, stonily restrained, and without the down-home amiability of his boss - might not provide a needed campaign-trail boost. And as Bush has seen his own poll ratings decline in recent months, Cheney's have dropped more drastically, largely because of his close involvement in some of the controversies that have hurt the president most. Cheney has been challenged on several fronts. Some critics said he had pushed the CIA to provide the most damaging possible assessment of a threat from Iraq. After the war, and even after the weapons inspector David Kay said that he expected no banned weapons to be found in Iraq, Cheney has insisted that such weapons will be found.
Even after Bush stated that no link had been found between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, Cheney said there was "overwhelming evidence" of such a tie. Cheney's ties to corporate America and the energy industry have been the source of further criticism, particularly after stories that Halliburton, the huge oil-services company he once headed, had won no-bid contracts for work in Iraq, and overcharged for some services there. The Justice Department is investigating, moreover, whether a Halliburton subsidiary made improper payments to gain work in Nigeria during Cheney's time as the company's chief. Cheney has been unable to shake questions about a secretive task force he convened early in the administration to help develop its energy policy. The White House resisted calls for the details of the panel's workings, including even the names of its members, drawn primarily from energy company executives. And with the dispute coming before the Supreme Court, Cheney has been criticized for taking a high court justice, Antonin Scalia, on a duck-hunting trip in Louisiana aboard Air Force Two. Scalia said there was nothing irregular about that sort of socializing, since Cheney was not involved in the case as a private individual. Further, Cheney's office has been a focus of an investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA officer, Valerie Plame. The leak was seen as a way of punishing her husband, who had criticized administration arguments for war with Iraq. Cheney, however, remains popular among the conservatives whom Bush views as crucial to his re-election. "Cheney is well-respected by conservatives," said Wayne of Georgetown. "The president thinks he made the right decision in Dick Cheney, and there's no reason to drop him."
What could change that thinking, of course, is if Cheney encountered new health problems. He has suffered four heart attacks. A Cheney spokesman has insisted that the vice president's health is fine. And Bush has insisted that he will stand by his vice president much as his father did in 1992, despite widespread criticism that Dan Quayle had proved a drag on the ticket. "I don't think that Bush loyalty gene will permit him" to drop Cheney, said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. "But the one way it reasonably could happen is if Cheney himself recognized he was a lead weight around the Republican ticket this year, which you could make a good argument for."
Should pressure grow for Cheney to step aside, analysts note, the health issue could provide useful cover for a graceful withdrawal. That, of course, has given rise to the latest chapter of a favorite Washington game: speculating on who might come next. There is no clear-cut best pick as a theoretical Cheney successor, though among the names most bruited about are those of: Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, a tough-minded and respected medical doctor, but not particularly well-known around the country;
Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York, who gained widespread respect for his handling of the crisis in his city in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, but whose positions on some social issues are more liberal than those of the president; Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security director, a former Pennsylvania governor who was considered for the No. 2 spot in 2000 but faced right-wing opposition for supporting abortion rights;
And Condoleezza Rice, his trusted national security adviser and a woman considered a bright star among Republicans, though perhaps less so after the highly contentious debate over the Iraq war. She is also, however, considered a favorite choice if Secretary of State Colin Powell steps down at the end of this term, as has been widely rumored.
International Herald Tribune
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