Can a Republican get elected with just the white vote?

They are certainly going to test the theory:

The top four Republican presidential candidates have set off a debate over whether the GOP is paying enough attention to blacks and Hispanics by skipping Thursday night's debate on minority issues.

The four leading Republican candidates — former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Arizona Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney — cited scheduling conflicts in saying they could not attend the debate at Morgan State University, a historically black college.

After the GOP pooh-poohed a CNN/YouTube debate, after they stiffed the Hispanic community by failing to make room on their schedules for an Univision face-off, after they criticized their Democratic counterparts for refusing to debate on the Fox Propaganda Channel.

Why, it even confounds Eye of Newt:

"I'm puzzled by their decision. I can't speak for them. I think it's a mistake. I wish they would change their minds — they still have a few days — and I wish they would in fact go to the debate Thursday night," Gingrich, who is considering entering the race for the GOP nomination, said earlier this week.

If it puzzles a man of his towering intellect, just imagine how the African-American community must feel.

So who do you think should be the VP nominee?

I thought my man John Edwards was triumphant in last night's debate, as did most others, and whether Hillary has peaked or not is a conversation for another day.

For today let's speculate idly about who might be on the undercard for various candidates Republican and Democratic.

Hillary could pick Obama or Tom Vilsack or Evan Bayh and be just fine, but I think she takes Bill Richardson, or even better for her, Wesley Clark. He just solves a lot of her negatives by being a white military Southern gentleman.

Obama almost has to pick a white guy with "gravitas" (see Dick Cheney 2000) which likewise suggests Clark, or perhaps Biden or Dodd. Two senators brings up a lot of bad memories from the past two cycles, though, so look for a heavyweight like Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania (no pun intended, Governor). But Barack sort of needs someone from the South or West also, so perhaps Brian Schweitzer of Montana is a possibility.

Edwards could go in any number of directions should he wind up as the Democratic nominee. He could pick a female elected official such as Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas or Janet Napolitano of Arizona. Both of those red states would be in play along with a block of surrounding midwestern or southwestern states. Or he could select Richardson or Obama to break the GOP stranglehold on the South and Southwest.

The Republicans? They're in a quandary because all of their front-runners have some significant negatives, but my belief is that irrespective of who emerges from the conservative scrum, the winner taps Mike Huckabee as his running mate. Mostly because he's a Christian, but also because he isn't a freak.

Unless Eye of Newt can somehow pole-vault past the "pygmies", as he calls them, and then I think he has to pick another outsider, and possibly a Westerner for geographic balance.

Larry "Wide Stance" Craig is just the man he's looking for.

What do you think? Give me a few fer-instances in the comments.

Stale Rice

ThinkProgress reports the deflation of Kinda Sleazy:

Over the past two years, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been on the Sunday talk shows 30 times, making her the most second frequent guest after Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE).

But that may be changing. In his Washington Post column, Howard Kurtz reveals that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is no longer a “prize catch” for the Sunday talk shows. She was recently turned down by both CBS and NBC:

The secretary of state has always been considered a prize catch for the Sunday talk shows. But when the White House offered Condoleezza Rice for appearances eight days ago, after a week focused on Iraq, two programs took the unusual step of turning her down.

Executives at CBS and NBC say Rice no longer seems to be a key player on the war and that her cautious style makes her a frustrating guest.

“I expected we’d just get a repetition of the administration’s talking points, which had already been well circulated,” says Bob Schieffer, host of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” who questioned two senators instead. “We’d had a whole week of that with General Petraeus and President Bush.”

Television media aren’t the only ones uninterested in Rice. A few months ago, every single major newspaper turned it down an op-ed by Rice on Lebanon. Price Floyd, formerly the State Department’s director of media affairs, recounted that the piece was filled glowing references to President Bush’s wise leadership and “read like a campaign document.”

Recent reports indicate that Rice’s influence within the White House is also waning, giving way to the more extreme policies of Cheney and his allies. A Newsweek article in June found that Cheney’s national-security team had “been actively challenging Rice’s Iran strategy in recent months.” In April, Rice advocated that five members of the Iran Revolutionary Guard be freed from captivity, but she was overruled after Cheney “made the firmest case for keeping them.”

These reports contrast when Rice first became Secretary of State. The media gushingly predicted she would succeed because she and Bush “know each other so well they have conversations based on body language” and speculated that she may even run for president in 2008.

This past Sunday, none of the five network talk shows turned down Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and Fox.

Back to academia with you, Madam Secretary.

875 and $87,000+

In just the past week Rick Noriega's campaign has added 75 more donors and fifteen grand to the party.

And we haven't even flogged it much.

Noriega will probably be named later today the winner of Democracy for Texas' online polling, as he has carried a substantial lead throughout. And this is the final week before the end of the fundraising quarter and the results for the exploratory campaign will be made public.

Our little netroots push went national, and also generated substantial organic grassroots momentum (despite what one person thinks).

You can still ride the Noriega Express and be one of the One Thousand Netroots Supporters of this campaign. There's still 125 seats left. But hey, time's running out; you only have until Sunday to get on board.

Considering what a jackass our Junior Senator was this past week (and considering your other option -- a man who believes pregnant women have no choice, but gays do --) it's long been clear to those of us who know the man that Rick Noriega is the only choice for the US Senate.

Won't you join us?

Update (6 p.m.): Noriega 78.4%, Watts 21.6%.

Update (9/25): Via Sharon and RG Ratcliffe, Noriega thanks the netroots:



"Now with this new dimension in American politics, the netroots allows for regular folks like myself, who have devoted their lives to public service to step forward and offer themselves up for higher office.

"No longer do you have to be a celebrity or a self-financed millionaire to offer yourself up for higher office.

"The netroots in large part has leveled the playing field."

"The netroots component is going to be a critical piece of us defeating John Cornyn and getting the state and nation back on track after this administration has so misled us."