Condi for VP?

This past weekend there was a fundraising gathering for Mitt Romney in Park City, Utah. There were many Republican luminaries who attended, including VP hopefuls like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, as well as Sen. John McCain and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. But many of the attendees said the star speaker was former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Ambassador Charles Cobb, who was ambassador to Iceland from 1989 to 1992, said Rice was “spectacular.” Donor Kent Lucken, an international banker in Boston, said, “she rocked it.”

So, of course, there are those calling for Rice to be the choice for Veep. But one wonders if they remember 2008 …

December 7, 2008, one month after Barack Obama was elected, Rice was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN, and this is what she said about Obama:

But of course, he is someone that I admire. He was on my committee, the Foreign Relations Committee. We have talked a number of times. He is going to do very well for the country. But eight years is a long time. The American people are wise in wanting change. Two terms is plenty. And I’m going to go back to California and on to other things.

Three days later, December 10, 2008, being interviewed by Dan Raviv on CBS:

Raviv: Are you personally excited about Barack Obama becoming our next President and our first African-American President?

Rice: Sure, it’s meaningful. It’s meaningful to me personally. It’s meaningful to the country. I’m a kid from Birmingham, Alabama, and until we moved to Denver, Colorado, when I was 12 I didn’t have a white classmate – the whole time when I went to school in Alabama. So sure! This is a huge move forward for our country. Our country has been getting there. You know, we’ve had back-to-back African-American secretaries of state! We have heads of Fortune 500 companies who are black. The world’s greatest golfer – not exactly a sport known for African-American dominance – is an African-American. And so, slowly but surely this country has been overcoming race.

Raviv: May I take it that you actually preferred a victory for Senator Obama, and not John McCain?

Rice: I have constantly told people that I was Secretary of State and I was not going to get into a partisan debate. And I would vote my ballot in a secret way, as all Americans do. But I just want to acknowledge that after the election took place, it was a special time for Americans.

In October, 2010, Rice appeared at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., and said of Obama, “Nothing in this president’s methods suggests this president is other than a defender of America’s interests.” Was she serious?

Condi is not the best choice for VP – especially not in the aftermath of her disastrous second term, in which she was Secretary of State, and ended up undercutting American allies like Israel.