Cheney Should Have Been the GOP Nominee??

@anniepa (27955)
United States
April 28, 2009 5:58pm CST
A columnist for the New York Times actually said this in an op-ed column and I think he was serious... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/opinion/28douthat.html?_r=1 The article begins "Watching D1ck Cheney defend the Bush administration’s interrogation policies, 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." Let's discuss this civilly and politely - should the D1ck have been the GOP nominee? COULD he have won the nomination? Is there anyone here who would have voted for him and could you please tell me why? Annie
2 people like this
9 responses
@ZephyrSun (7381)
• United States
29 Apr 09
I don't think he would have been a good pick. I can see it now Obama 75% Cheney 10% LOL I would never vote for him to run my school board let alone president of the United States.
2 people like this
@dfollin (24146)
• United States
29 Apr 09
Lol Obama 75% and Cheney 10% !Lol,thats funny and true. Heck I wouldn't hire him to be a manager of my store if I had one!
@xfahctor (14118)
• Lancaster, New Hampshire
29 Apr 09
*gag! *choke! *wretch! *vomit! Yeh, JUST what we needed, a third Bush term, oh.....wait....we got that anyway.
1 person likes this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
29 Apr 09
So, can I put you down for "NO"? I'm not going to go off-topic too much here but I don't think we've gotten a third bush term. Despite the fact there are some things that have remained as they were under Bush and I'm not happy with some of them, there are still enough differences to make me believe the right choice was made in November. Annie
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
1 May 09
X, I've listed my reasons often enough as well. We'll finally get real health care reform, we now have stem cell research, there will be a good energy policy and we won't be getting more far-right Supreme Court Justices like the four we have now. Oh, and, we don't have "Vice President Palin"! Tell me what choice do you think I should have made? Annie
@xfahctor (14118)
• Lancaster, New Hampshire
29 Apr 09
DO I really have to go through and list all the continued Bush policies annie? Are you REALLY going to make me do that? You your self said constitutional rights were important to you, with those in as much danger now, if not more so, or the structure of our republic, how can you possibly believe you made the right choice?
@dfollin (24146)
• United States
29 Apr 09
Oh my,I am shocked.No,Cheney should not have been the GOP nominee.And no way would he have beat President Obama.Obama beat McCain and McCain could have beat Cheney.LolI can't believe someone said that!How could anyone even think that?
1 person likes this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
1 May 09
I couldn't believe it either when I heard of this article! I'd never have dreamed anyone would even think to mention Cheney as a candidate. God forbid! Annie
@Adoniah (7513)
• United States
28 Apr 09
Dlck Cheney should not have been the nominee and he would not have been elected if he was. I doubt that Republicans would have voted for him. I don't think anyone really trusted him even as a Vice. They certainly wouldn't have wanted him in charge. Shalom~Adoniah
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
29 Apr 09
That's how I feel! However, I guess I'm not too surprised to see that there have already been several in this discussion who have said they'd have voted for him. I mean, I AM surprised that anyone could find anything other than total evil in cheney but I'm not surprised because myLot has mostly conservatives. Annie
• United States
29 Apr 09
I would have considered voting for him but it is hard to say as I have never seen campaign as the main candidate. From what I have seen, he is very well spoken and intelligent. It would be interesting to see what the response of U.S. would have been to having the option to vote for a conservative candidate. The only conservative candidate in my life time was Ronald Reagan and he did extremely well with the voters. Polls show that more Americans identify themselves as conservatives than liberals so he might have done better than expected. I still have hope that the voters would listen to a candidate like Cheney but I do have doubts. He does not have to rock star flash of Obama but instead seems to rely on making point by point statements which would be tedious for many voters to follow. Very few sound bites but more defined stances. He would also have to deal with the eight years of the media demonizing him. This might take a little effort but I think most people care very little for media portrayals when it comes time to vote (Bush did win twice). Since he had never the intent to run for President, I had not given it a lot of thought but now I find the idea more attractive. I do hope that the next time around the Republicans ditch their moderate candidates (Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain) and move towards a conservative stand.
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
29 Apr 09
I doubt there are two people more totally opposite in personality than Cheney and Reagan! Reagan was an excellent communicator and he had great charisma. He was conservative but I don't believe he was a warmonger. Polls show only 21% of the people identify themselves as Republicans and I'd imagine only the most die-hard Republican would ever consider voting for Cheney. Annie
• United States
29 Apr 09
Oh GOD NO! That man should never and I mean never be in a politcal office again. I dislike and distrust him more than I do Bush. He would have never have stood even a small chance of getting elected. Who would have actually voted for him besides big business. I do not think even the hard core republicans could have brought themselves to vote for him for president.
1 person likes this
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
29 Apr 09
I would have voted for him. He might have challenged then Senator Obama to be specific, something that Senator McCain wuld not do. He may have frced Senator Obama to answer hard questions that he did not want to answer.
• United States
29 Apr 09
I agree annie. I may not have like Bush but Cheney scared the you know what out of me. I always considered him the one in charge in Bush. Bush was just the poster boy but cheney was pulling the strings. I am sooo glad he is gone. Well I am glad both are gone. I did not like McCain either though. Man the conservatives need to come up with some decent candidates. Democrats do too in my opinion.The only one I really like in the past one was Ron Paul and he won't be running next time because of his age (too bad, great man). They better come up with some great choices next time or I am going third party again.
1 person likes this
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
29 Apr 09
He would have been a better choice than Senator McCain. I seem to recall that when he was selected as VP he told people he had no desire to be president and would not run when President Bushs term was up. In some respects he is like President Truman who is credited with saying "I never give them HeII, I just tell them the truth and they think it is HeII" If you listen to him he does not attack President Obama personally but does challenge his ideas and policies. If they want to prosecute the people in the Bush Administration for the interragations, then if we are attacked we would have to prosecute the current administration for failing to protect us by not using all the tools Congress Approved.
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
29 Apr 09
I can't remember if he said he wouldn't run as a condition of being the V.P. or how that went, but I know he'd said from the beginning he wasn't going to run. I kind of think calling someone "weak" is an attack. If the people in the Bush Administration broke the law they MUST be prosecuted, in my opinion. Congress can't be blamed for us torturing, those decisions were made by the Administration and it looks like there were even more lies told than we'd originally thought, the torture was used to try to link Iraq and al Qaeda by forcing false confessions. That's what torture works for, making someone say whatever the interrogator wants them to say and not necessarily the truth. Annie
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
4 May 09
He shouldn't have been, and he couldn't have been. Even ignoring the fact that he would have been running with Bush's low approval on his plate, the party wanted to nominate the most liberal republican that ran and that was McCain. The more conservative candidates, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, came in third and fourth place respectively. A lot of that was the lack of media coverage and name recognition issues, but the result was what it was. Had he been nominated, I would have given him the same consideration that I gave all candidates. I didn't write ANYONE off without thoroughly researching them unlike the many who just jumped on the Obama bandwagon without even spending five minutes researching his opponents. In the end, had he been nominated, I would have most likely voted for Bob Barr. It was already a tough choice between him and McCain, but Sarah Palin tipped the scales in McCain's favor for me.
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
5 May 09
We're certainly in agreement that "He shouldn't have been and he couldn't have been". Do you think the party wanted to nominate the most liberal Republican that ran because they realized the country was moving to the left and that an ultra-conservative wouldn't stand a chance? Annie
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
10 May 09
I don't think the media ignored the GOP primaries. The campaign didn't last nearly as long as the Democratic one but while it was going on they talked about it all the time in the media and all of the debates were televised. I think Ron Paul got a raw deal from the media but if anyone didn't know who Huckabee, Romney or Guiliani were it was their own fault, not the media's. I will concede that the media did love McCain, though. Annie
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
5 May 09
That was what I thought initially when McCain did well, but I think this was really an issue with the media. The media really ignored the Republican primaries almost entirely since nobody there was exciting compared to Obama and Clinton. Most people didn't even know who Huckabee was until the RNC started whining that he should concede. As such I think it was little more than a battle of name recognition, and in that fight, nobody had a chance against McCain.
@Fortunata (1135)
• United States
28 Apr 09
Yes, I would have voted for him. I've known about him for a long time, because he used to be a senator from my state (or was that congress person? Oh well). He has a level head on his shoulders, and makes adult decisions, unlike what we have now in the White House. Some people think he is snarky, but that is a trait some people from Wyoming have, like Senator Simpson used to have. Sometimes Vice Presidents make good presidents. Why Cheney didn't run, I have no idea. I'm sure he could have, if he'd wanted to.
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
29 Apr 09
It seems to me he "promised" before the 2000 election to never run. I really wouldn't compare Cheney to Simpson, I thought Simpson was a decent human being. I remember I didn't agree with him on some issues but I liked him. Annie