This morning on the Chris Matthews show (the credits are rolling as I write this)
Bob Woodward predicted Dick Cheney as a serious dark horse candidate.
I will post links to any articles if they show up later in the day.
Update [2005-5-15 10:47:54 by Florida Democrat]: May 23rd issue of Newsweek has the Woodward quote.
Is it possible?
He's lacking popularity, that's for sure. He'll have to run 100% on defense/terrorism. Which IMHO won't be easy in '08 at this rate... unless of course there's a major terrorist attack in the works.
In a discussion about possible '08 Republican nominations, Woodward said: "There's a serious vaccume right now, and this vaccume is not likely to be filled" referring to Frist / Brownback / Allen as "establishment" candidates. He said (I'm paraphrasing, West Coast folks could correct me)
I think you will have a number of people trying to fill the vaccume, and then a guy named George Bush will come out and say "What about Dick?"
Woodward repeated himself again at the end "prediction" segment of the show. Saying Cheney is a serious dark horse candidate for '08.
It was also pointed out that Dick Cheney worked behind the scenes to nominate himself VP. He was originally put in charge of finding a suitable VP candidate and ended up choosing himself.
The Freepers have been thinking about this for a while now. Cheney/Ashcroft-08 and Cheney/Rice-08 have been thrown around already.
There's also this from Larry Kudlow's March 22 Column.
Does anyone seriously doubt that Cheney is the most qualified person, in either party, to be our next president? Any number of early Republican hopefuls — Frist, Allen, Giuliani, McCain, Romney — would look good riding the bus with Cheney in a few years. The Cheney for President bus, that is.
I hope President Bush asks Vice President Cheney to succeed him. For four more years.
To me, this raises the possibility of Cheney running as the business candidate opposing the religious right candidates like Frist and Allen. Afterall, anti-sodomy and anti-choice laws may get you the Christian right vote but they can't be all that good for business.