Could There Be A New Vice President Before '08?

Peggy Noonan seems to think that there may be, and she makes the case for that in a Wall Street Journal piece. President Bush is fiercely loyal to those loyal to him (as we saw in the Harriett Miers debacle), so it's unlikely that Bush would simply make a political calculation and boot Cheney out. However, if both he and Cheney (and Rove) thought it best for the 2008 elections to have a new guy (or gal) in the Veep office, they may make a joint decision to make the change. When? Probably right after the '06 midterms.

Noonan discusses some of the political considerations to such a change:

George Bush, and so the men and women around him, will want the next Republican presidential nominee to continue the U.S. effort in, and commitment to, Iraq. To be a candidate who will continue his policy, and not pull the plug, and burrow through.

This person will not be Dick Cheney, who has already said he doesn't plan to run. So Mr. Bush may feel in time that he has reason to want to put in a new vice president in order to pick a successor who'll presumably have an edge in the primaries--he's the sitting vice president, and Republicans still respect primogeniture. They will tend to make the common-sense assumption that a guy who's been vice president for, say, a year and a half, is a guy who already knows the top job. Anyway, the new guy will get a honeymoon, which means he won't be fully hated by the time the 2008 primaries begin.

This new vice president would, however, have to be very popular in the party, or the party wouldn't buy it. Replacing Mr. Cheney would be chancy. The new veep would have to get through the Senate, which has at this point at least three likely contenders for the nomination, at least two of whom who would not, presumably, be amused.

Plus there's more quiet anti-administration feeling in the party than is generally acknowledged, and the president's men know it. A lot of people would find such a move too cute by half. The contenders already in line--and their supporters, donors, fans, staff and friends in the press--would resent it. Big time.

People wouldn't like it . . . unless they liked it. How could they be persuaded to like it?

It would have to be a man wildly popular in the party and the press. And it would have to be a decision made by Dick Cheney. If he didn't want to do it he wouldn't have to. If he were pressed--Dick, we gotta put the next guy in here or we're going to lose in '08 and see all our efforts undone--he might make the decision himself. He'd have to step down on his own. He's just been through a trauma, and he can't be liking his job as much now as he did three years ago. No one on the downside of a second term does, hate magnet or not.

If I were to give odds, I'd say there's a 50% chance that Cheney will step down. The excuse may be health, boredom, or other issues, but if he goes, I think will be mainly for the purpose of allowing Bush to choose his successor. Maybe Condi, maybe Rudi, who knows? But you can bet the Senate confirmation will be something to behold, because the Dems won't be wild about confirming the GOP frontrunner for '08.