White House Seen Grooming Tom Ridge As Cheney Successor

by Walter Brasch

Ridge was on President Bush's "short list" in the 2000 election but not selected, primarily because the president didn't wish to alienate his conservative right-wing base. Ridge not only was perceived to be a "moderate" in a party that had become dominated by the far- right, he was a Catholic, a decidedly unpopular selection for the right-wing; and an opponent to governmental interference to tell a woman she had no right to choose, a decidedly unpopular choice among Catholics.

Like the presidential candidate, Vice President Cheney was a multimillionaire businessman who was embraced by all the right- wing slices of the Republican party and tolerable to the moderates. (The liberal Republicans were never a concern.) But, unlike President Bush, who was seen as an affable but bumbling intellectual lightweight, Cheney had a distinguished history in both elected and appointed offices at the highest levels of government.

During the first nine months of President Bush's term, with dozens of politically-savvy and intellectually-superior "Old Guard" (including Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice) in cabinet and advisory positions it appeared that the president Bush, then perceived to be a lightweight, was serving as special assistant to the vice-president and the coalition of Daddy Elder's advisors. In reality, the former Texas governor was getting an intense course in how to be a president.

President Bush graduated on Sept. 11. In order to assert his leadership to give the nation stability, the president had no choice but to exile Vice President Cheney to "undisclosed locations" under the guise of national security. There is no evidence that the vice-president disagreed. The vice-president doesn't need a second term to prepare to be a presidential candidate. By the 2004 election, Vice-President Cheney will have survived several more health crises, and be entitled to again enjoy the rewards of a lifetime of national service and fortune-building. He will have served his purpose to President Bush and to the Republican party.

Exit Vice President Dick Cheney.

Enter former Pa. Gov. Tom Ridge.

President Bush may have considered offering Ridge a cabinet position. If so, Ridge probably declined it in order to serve the two years remaining of his governorship. As a governor of a major industrial state, Ridge could command national exposure; as a cabinet-level secretary -- there was no way the president would have given him Defense over Rumsfeld or State over Powell -- Ridge would be lost in the catacombs of Washington politics.

Simultaneous with the announcement on Oct. 8 that he was creating the Office of Homeland Security, President Bush nominated Ridge as its first director. At the time, Ridge was within three months of entering the last year of his second and final term as Pennsylvania governor.

Making Ridge's transition to Washington easier were two major factors. First, Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor didn't want to run for a full term, thus not upsetting the party's support for the attorney general, who does want to be governor.

Second, both President Bush and Ridge knew that if Ridge completed his term as governor, he would be out of office -- and possibly out of the public's interest -- for the last two years of the Bush presidency. There is nothing worse for a politician than to be seen as irrelevant. The Sept. 11 disaster guaranteed national exposure -- and the perception that Ridge, by giving up the governorship, was serving his country, not his own political interests. As director of homeland security, Ridge has a broad mandate, but little actual power, a small staff and minimal budget. The possibility of him being able to coordinate well-entrenched biases and turf-sensitivities within the FBI, CIA, and Defense Department are remote. But, for several reasons, the position assures Ridge of being a prime candidate for the vice-presidency.

• Ridge was given the title of Assistant to the President, but with cabinet-level rank.

• In a White House where access to the President is seen as the measure of one's political life, Ridge not only reports directly to the President -- almost all senior staff report to the chief of staff or a deputy -- but has an office less than 50 feet from the President's.

• This access also gives President Bush and his political advisors a chance not only to better evaluate Ridge for the vice-presidency, but to insulate him from political mistakes. The appointment could very well be a two-year vice-presidential internship.

• Ridge coyly flirted with running for the presidency in 2000. Four years of serving as a vice-president would give him the experience and credibility for an all-out campaign in 2008 (should President Bush win a second term).

• For a party that places military service higher than other forms of national service, Ridge has impeccable credentials. While President Bush spent his military career in National Guard ready rooms, Ridge, with a Harvard degree, was drafted into the Army as a "grunt" during the Vietnam War and came out as a staff sergeant wearing the Bronze Star.

• Ridge has done nothing to alienate the NRA, which once claimed it would be in the White House with President Bush.

• Pennsylvania's electoral votes, the nation's fifth largest block in 2000, went to Gore-Lieberman. Even with redistricting which will lower Pennsylvania's ranking, the Keystone State is still one of the major electoral blocks. With Ridge on the 2004 ticket, establishing a geographical balance that Bush-Cheney didn't have, the electoral votes would probably go to Bush-Ridge, even though the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh urban areas will probably go with a more liberal ticket.

• Attorney General John Ashcroft, probably selected by President Bush as one of dozens of ways to reward the GOP's right wing, is now seen as a political liability. Ridge, the moderate, now becomes a political asset.

• The selection of candidates also means selection of candidate spouses. First Lasy Laura Bush was a librarian who, with her husband's approval, is pushing an educational agenda for the Bush presidency. Michele Ridge was executive director of the Erie County Library System. One of President Bush's first presidential appointments was to name her to the Commission on Presidential Scholars which selects high-achieving high school students. Equally important, neither Laura Bush nor Michele Ridge upstage their husbands, a "problem" conservatives screeched in horror at the tenure of Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton.

If he wants to avoid a similar fate, President Bush the Younger may need the equally youthful Ridge.