Vice-President Dick Cheney has circulated at the highest levels of American political power for more than three decades, gaining a reputation as a skilled bureaucratic infighter on the way to becoming the most powerful executive branch number two in the history of the office. An Assistant then full Chief of Staff in the Ford White House, Mr. Cheney spent most of the 1980’s as a Congressman from Wyoming before going on to serve as Secretary of Defense in the administration of George H.W. Bush. Initially placed in charge of vetting potential running mates for George W. Bush in 2000, Mr. Cheney gained the younger Mr. Bush’s confidence in the course of the selection process and emerged as the then-Texas Governor’s preferred candidate. Under a chief executive who signaled early on his willingness to delegate significant authority to subordinates, Mr. Cheney stepped into what many have characterized as a kind of American premiership.
Though he may have considered running for the White House at an earlier stage of his career, the Vice-President has in recent years consistently denied harboring any ambitions to stand for the Oval Office. If personal inclination had not already induced Mr. Cheney to concede his earlier aspirations, reality likely would have done so. The Vice-President, like Mr. Bush, has incredibly low public approval ratings, is closely associated with the administration’s unpopular policies in Iraq and the “war on terror” more generally, and has suffered a number of heart attacks. Even some staunch Republicans have at times expressed a certain unease with having such a man “a heartbeat away from the presidency,” let alone in the presidency itself. Given the current circumstances, the White House seems fully out of Mr. Cheney’s reach and his national political career appears to be in its final months.
Above: Soon-to-be retiree Dick CheneyMr. Cheney and his wife Lynne are now preparing to do what many of their generation have long since done: retire, downsize, and move to Florida. A vice-presidential spokesperson has confirmed that the Cheneys recently put down a deposit on a condo in the Boca Breeze Retirement Village of Boca Raton, Florida. Besides the pleasant climate and access to beaches, shopping, and golf, the Boca Breeze also holds another strong attraction for a political animal like Mr. Cheney: a soon-to-be-open presidential seat on the Village’s governing council. Mr. Cheney may yet wield ultimate executive power, albeit over a smaller bit of real estate.
The Vice-President has not yet officially declared his candidacy, but his actions clearly indicate that his hat is in the ring. Former Chief of Staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby – a close confidant sometimes called “Dick Cheney’s Dick Cheney” for his loyalty and reputation as a Machiavellian political operator – has been dispatched to Boca Raton to begin laying the groundwork for the Vice-President’s campaign.
Another Cheney aide, who wished to remain anonymous, has indicated that preparations for taking the Boca Breeze presidency are well underway. “Scooter is in place to direct the troops, the campaign posters have been ordered, and a fleet of campaign golf carts is charging its batteries as we speak.”
Cheney has also gotten prominent surrogates to swing through the Village to speak on his behalf. President Bush himself, accompanied by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, recently played a round of golf in the neighborhood and then dropped in at the Village Recreation Center to call a game of bingo. Mr. Bush took advantage of his control of the microphone in order to talk up his man.
“Ok, folks. We’ve got, let’s see…i-14: that’s ‘i,’ as in ‘Dick Cheney did not get us into I-raq,’ fourteen.”
“Next,” the President called,” we’ve got…b-2: as in ‘Dick Cheney be an excellent political number two.’ Anybody got bingo, yet?”
Above: Presidents Bush and Karzai aboard Golf Cart One during a visit to Boca Breeze Retirement Village on behalf of Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Mr. Cheney has directly tested the political waters at the Boca Breeze during several thinly disguised campaign stops. His candidacy polls strongly in the key – indeed, only – demographic of old white people. His appeal may be attributable in part to this cohort’s experiences of the Cold War and World War II, which serve as powerful resonating boards for the good vs. evil theme of much of the Bush Administration’s rhetoric. He also has the advantage of high name recognition based on his rise to national prominence well before this electorate entered senility.
Indeed, rather than play down his association with the unpopular sitting president, Mr. Cheney has openly cast himself as a defense hawk and fiscal conservative in the Bush mould. “We are combating terrorism over there,” he said to a semi-comatose crowd in the Village dining room in reference to the ongoing military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, “in order to preserve your right to eat dinner at four o’clock at home. That’s what America is all about!”
Sources close to Mr. Cheney indicate that he is likely to run on a platform involving steep cuts in condo fees, combined with increased expenditure on Village security. While certain to appeal to a population living on fixed incomes and susceptible to fears of crime and encroachment by unwelcome ethnic minorities, this set of policies has been branded “fiscally irresponsible” by many economists.
The Vice-President, a strong believer in the theory of executive primacy, has spent much of the last eight years attempting to recover for the executive branch the powers that he and many fellow conservatives believe were lost to other branches of government in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. He may not speak openly of his intentions during the campaign, but sources indicate that Mr. Cheney is weighing a radical revision of the Boca Breeze Retirement Village’s by-laws in line with this philosophy. The central provision of this so-called “nuclear option” would abolish the governing council in favor of a life dictatorship.
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