Iowa Republicans should keep their calendars open for a visit by former Vice President Dick Cheney or at least one of his surrogates in coming months. Cheney’s daughter, Liz, recently hinted at what we have believed since the November election: that Dick Cheney will run for president in 2012.
That’s why he came out of defeat last fall swinging and hacking at Obama. He is trying to tear the man down not because of his concern for George W. Bush’s legacy but that Obama’s success would reflect badly on the former congressman from Wyoming.
Cheney remains the most prominent figure in the Republican Party. He is a former defense secretary and the point man for the neoconservatives who encouraged proliferating an American-led war to bring democracy to the Middle East.
Who are the alternatives? Mike Huckabee wowed the Iowa Caucuses last time around, but he doesn’t sound all that interested. Mitt Romney could not beat Huckabee. Sarah Palin? Not. Tim Pawlenty? Tim who? (Governor of Minnesota, with bigger ears and lots less charisma that the current occupant of the White House.) Someone else could come along, but they are not yet coming along to Iowa.
Cheney will, though he says he won’t.
He is one of the few people who can bring the Republican Party together under bad ideas. Cheney thinks Obama is a pipsqueak and that he can beat him. Most important, Cheney believes in his bad ideas and is perfectly willing to run on them.
Art Cullen is editor of The Storm Lake (Iowa) Times. Email: times@stormlake.com
From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2009
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