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Focus on News, Politics, etc.
by Jim Wrenn, Editor  (July 21,  2000)

Predictions on who will be the vice presidential nominees:
The tickets will be Bush/Powell and Gore/Feinstein...

    Despite Colin Powell's vehement statements that he will not "seek" elective office, he never said he wouldn't "run" if nominated.  Remember, Sherman said, "If nominated, I will not run; if elected I will not serve."  A couple of decades ago, the smart and witty Mo Udall was even more emphatic when he said, "If nominated, I will run ... for the Mexican Border, and if elected, I will resist extradition."
    During the Persian Gulf War, Colin Powell was extremely adept in keeping his strategic cards quite close to his vest.  Powell is a man who devoted himself to a career requiring a willingness to lay down his life for his country.  He knows that for him to accept the nomination to run for Vice President would not only virtually guarantee Bush's election but would also have an enormously powerful healing effect on a country still struggling with interracial awkwardness.  I'm sure he is Bush's first choice, and I just refuse to believe he would refuse requests from George W. Bush, Former President Bush, Dick Cheney, and numerous other heavyweights that he join the ticket..
    In my opinion, Bush's selection of Powell, and Powell's stature and popularity, would attract far more new voters to a Bush/Powell ticket than would be lost among the small, one-issue faction threatening to stay on the sidelines if Bush were to pick a candidate not professing a near absolutist anti-abortion position.  Not only would there be a significant (if not dramatic) increase in the percentage of blacks willing to vote for a Republican ticket, but Powell's selection would also increase Bush's already demonstrated appeal to other minorities.  Furthermore, Bush's willingness to risk the wrath of the one-issue faction by selecting Powell despite his "pro-choice" position would make it more difficult for Gore to use abortion as a wedge issue to recreate the now-closed "gender gap" among women.   Finally, a Bush/Powell ticket would widen the current "gender gap" favoring Bush among male voters.  For these reasons, I believe Powell will be the VP nominee.
    I believe Gore will be determined to try to make abortion the wedge issue, but if Bush were to persuade Powell to run, I think Gore will conclude that his only chance to recreate an abortion-rights gender gap would be to chose a woman of stature as his running mate.  Therefore, I think Gore will choose Diane Feinstein.  In fact, I think he'll choose her regardless of whom Bush were to select because even those on the opposite end of the political spectrum from her would readily concede she is a person of high intellect and substance-- sort of a Maggie Thatcher of the left.
    Thus, to borrow the term coined by William Safire, I believe we are on the verge of a watershed event in American history because this election will produce the first black or the first woman as Vice President and dramatically increase the chances that the successor of whoever is elected President this time will be either a woman or a black, both of whom would be considered qualified people apart from, rather than because of, race and/or gender.  
    My prediction is that Bush/Powell will be elected by a landslide.  Such election will restore morale and pride among those in the military; reverse the slide in retention and recruitment, make potential foreign aggressors less eager to make trouble, make blacks more proud to be Americans than ever before; restore dignity to the White House, and decelerate but (unfortunately) not reverse, our slide down the slippery slope of entitlementism, a term I'm coining to describe American voters' craving for the false security of governmental redistribution of wealth over the long-term security inherent in liberty and respect for the fruits of human labor (i.e., property).  
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