Secrets of the 2000 Election: Did Cheney choose himself to be VP Nominee?

[ck4829]

In July 2000, (John) Danforth's name was leaked as being on the short list of potential vice presidential nominees for Republican candidate George W. Bush, along with Michigan Governor John Engler, New York Governor George Pataki, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, and former American Red Cross President Elizabeth Dole. Just one week before the 2000 Republican National Convention was to be held in Philadelphia, campaign sources said that Dick Cheney, the man charged with leading the selection process for the nominee, had recommended Danforth to Bush for the position. Bush secretly met with Danforth at a hotel in Chicago, and three days later Danforth held a press conference stating he would be stepping down from his appointed role in the Waco investigations because an unforeseen political opportunity had suddenly come up. However, despite growing speculation that Danforth was Bush's final pick, Bush selected Cheney himself for the position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Danforth#Post_Senate_career

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I thought it had pretty much risen to the level of common knowledge

before the y2k election that Cheney had selected Cheney.

[rodeodance]

5. yes. this was out a long long time ago.

[msongs]

2. cheney selected bush - so he would have a good ol boy as a cover

and dick could be the straight man to george's laff a minute texas turd. as in, the power behind the throne.

msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[mnhtnbb]

3. Cheney picked himself. I remember him basically being quoted

that no candidate was as qualified as he was himself.

[liberalpragmatist]

4. Conservatives Don't Like John Danforth

He had a reputation as a moderate in the Senate (although he played a key role in appointing Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court).

He's publishing a book that blasts the GOP over gay rights, stem cell research, and the role of religion in politics.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Bushs_second_choice_for_Vice_President_0915.html

"I believe that homosexuality is a matter of sexual orientation rather than preference," he writes. "Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is, in my view, comparable to discrimination on other civil rights grounds. It is wrong, and it should be prohibited by law."

"I think that the only purpose served by the campaign for the amendment is the humiliation of gay Americans, advocated by the Christian right and eagerly supported by its suitors in the Republican Party," he adds. "In reality, it is gay bashing."

Danforth then goes even further, saying supporters' assertions that the amendment would protect marriage is ludicrous.

"America's divorce rate is now over 50 percent, and marriage is under attack from a number of quarters: finances, promiscuity, alcohol and drugs, the pressures of work, cultural acceptance of divorce, et cetera," he pens. "But it is incomprehensible that one of these threats is when someone else, whom we have never seen, in a place where we may have never been, has done something we don't like."

[peacetalksforall]

6. They had it all arranged in advance ,,, Looking for a VP was

just a pretense. Like their other pretenses. What they actually did at those interview meetings was to get all these disparate potential candidates
on board the PNAC train.

Didn't know it at the time, but it was a PNAC plan. Cheney was not electable and they knew it. This was a finely staged magic show. Cheney was pulled out of the hat while we were expecting another old Republican.