The Campaign That Might Have Been

Last year, many Republicans made no secret of their dissatisfaction with their party's nominee. Never mind the fact that John McCain was the winner of 31 Republican primaries, including several head–to–head contests with his leading rivals (Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney).

Right–wing Republicans may have yearned for a candidate whose views more closely mirrored their own, but there was one problem — nobody who met their standards sought the nomination. Some may argue that there were those — Romney, Huckabee, Ron Paul — who came close but fell short in one way or another.

They might have been better representatives of the Republican Party and the conservative movement in many ways, but their main problem was that conservatives never united behind them.

That's how it works in American politics. The concept of "drafting" a reluctant candidate for the presidency is an antiquated notion. To be nominated by a major party, one must actively campaign for the nomination. It is not an endeavor for wallflowers.

That doesn't prevent pundits from fantasizing about what might have been — even if what might have been was never very likely to begin with.

Such is the case with conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who rhapsodizes about what might have been if Dick Cheney had been the nominee instead of McCain.

Cheney is one of two vice presidents in my lifetime who never ran for president — the other was Spiro Agnew.

Agnew may have fantasized about seeking the nomination — before his crimes caught up with him — but he and Cheney are the only veeps who never ran for the top job. And it's extremely unlikely that Cheney will do so. He will turn 70 in 2011.

Most of the time, someone who serves as vice president seeks the presidency after completing his tenure — but not always. Some, like Al Gore and George H.W. Bush, run as sitting vice presidents. Others, like Walter Mondale, run later.

And some — like Lyndon Johnson — ran for president before they became vice president.

Some point out, for example, that Gerald Ford's vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, did not seek the presidency after Ford left the White House in 1977, which is true, but Rockefeller did seek the GOP nomination (unsuccessfully) in the 1960s. And, even if he does not seek the presidency after his time as vice president ends, Joe Biden will not join Cheney and Agnew because he made two abbreviated attempts to win the nomination (in 1988 and 2008) before he was chosen to be Barack Obama's running mate.

Even Dan Quayle, who is arguably the gold standard for poorly regarded vice presidents, sought the nomination — briefly — in 2000.

In the last years of his vice presidency, Cheney's disapproval numbers rivaled Quayle's. By the time that he left office, Cheney's performance got a thumbs–down by a 2–to–1 ratio in a Washington Post poll.

He was not a popular guy, even when he accidentally shot a lawyer on a hunting trip three years ago. And, given his health problems over the years (most notably, four heart attacks), one can legitimately wonder if he could have stood up to the rigors of a presidential campaign.

But Douthat seems to have few doubts about what would have been his suitability to seek the presidency.

"Watching Dick Cheney defend the Bush administration's interrogation policies," writes Douthat, "it's been hard to escape the impression that both the Republican Party and the country would be better off today if Cheney, rather than John McCain, had been a candidate for president in 2008."

Douthat doesn't suggest that Cheney might have beaten Obama, which is wise. Once the economic meltdown occurred last fall, I felt the election was a done deal. Republicans might even have fared worse with an actual member of the Bush administration at the top of the ticket than they did with McCain, who had the virtue (in the public's eyes) of having opposed some of Bush's policies.

Douthat argues that Cheney would have been "as disciplined and ideologically consistent as McCain was feckless," and he presumes that he would have been as "cuttingly effective" in the presidential debates as he was in his vice presidential debates in 2000 and 2004.

But the real benefit, Douthat seems to think, would have been that "when he went down to a landslide loss, the conservative movement might — might! — have been jolted into the kind of rethinking that's necessary if it hopes to regain power."

Beyond that, Douthat says a Cheney candidacy could have had a cleansing effect on the country that the McCain candidacy did not have.

"The former vice president's post–election attacks on Obama are bad form," he acknowledges. "But they're part of an argument about the means and ends of our interrogation policy that should have happened during the general election and didn't — because McCain wasn't a supporter of the Bush–era approach, and Obama didn't see a percentage in harping on the topic."

I don't know if that is true. A lot of things should have been discussed in recent presidential campaigns but never got discussed in spite of the presence in the campaign of the people who made the important policy choices. The war in Iraq, for example, should have been talked about at length during the 2004 campaign — but the public was easily distracted by stories from Vietnam and whether gay people should be allowed to marry. In previous campaigns, serious issues took a back seat while there were heated debates about things like flag burning.

Nevertheless, Douthat makes a valid point when he says, "where the Bush administration's interrogation programs are concerned, we've heard too much to just 'look forward,' as the president would have us do. We need to hear more: What was done and who approved it, and what intelligence we really gleaned from it. Not so that we can prosecute ... but so that we can learn and pass judgment and struggle toward consensus."

Could that have been achieved through a Cheney candidacy? I don't know. I have my doubts. But Douthat doesn't appear to be skeptical.

"Here Dick Cheney, prodded by the ironies of history into demanding greater disclosure about programs he once sought to keep completely secret, has an important role to play," Douthat writes. "He wants to defend his record; let him defend it. And let the country judge.

"But better if this debate had happened during the campaign season. And better, perhaps, if Cheney himself had been there to have it out."

That may be so. But I still doubt that the desire for disclosure would have been satisfied if the sitting vice president, with his penchant for secrecy, had been the Republican standard bearer.

Perhaps he feels freer now, as the former vice president, to speak openly about his role. And perhaps that would be a good thing for the country.

But I am dubious — at best — that having Cheney at the top of the ticket instead of McCain would have helped the Republicans see more clearly what they must do to get back in the voters' good graces.