Vice President Dick Cheney will be speaking at the Republican National Convention in early September after all, according to four Republican sources. He is scheduled to speak on the opening night of the convention, Monday, September 1, before George W. Bush addresses delegates.
The decision to include Cheney caps several weeks of discussion between the McCain campaign and the Bush White House about the proper roles for Bush and Cheney. The president was always going to speak, of course, but Cheney's role was subject to debate.
When the matter first arose, Cheney told the McCain campaign that he would be happy to do whatever he could do to be helpful. The McCain campaign was initially cool to the idea of Cheney speaking and some of its leaders, in the McCain campaign, including the titular campaign chairman Rick Davis, did not want Cheney to speak under any circumstances. As word spread on Capitol Hill and among conservative activists in Washington, some conservatives began to grumble that the McCain campaign's treatment of Cheney is yet another sign that the campaign is taking the Republican base for granted.
Last week, the story broke out into the open. Several news outlets ran stories reporting that Cheney had not been invited to speak at the convention. Others said he'd been "disinvited." The McCain campaign dodged questions about a Cheney appearance.
Then earlier this week, on Tuesday, Rush Limbaugh said it was "sad" that the McCain campaign has gone to such lengths to distance itself from Bush and Cheney. The following day, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal ran under the headline "A Cheney Snub?" The editorial criticized the McCain campaign for its failure to embrace Cheney and argued that the vice president should be invited, and soon.
The longer he waits, the worse this is going to get. By signaling that a sitting Republican Vice President might not be welcome at a Republican convention, the McCain campaign is handing the press corps an opening to fill the next few weeks with stories highlighting a divided GOP. Come convention time, you can expect lots of on-air jokes that the missing Mr. Cheney "must be at an undisclosed location."
Democrats will love it, and, sure enough, only a day after the news broke about the Vice President's possible noninvite, the Obama camp rolled out a Web site called "The Next Cheney." This should make clear that the real target of those attacking the veep is Mr. McCain. If the Senator gives the impression that he agrees that Mr. Cheney is not fit for decent company, he'll demoralize his friends and encourage his opponents.
The McCain campaign has gone out of its way to create distance between McCain and President Bush and to focus the campaign on Barack Obama and his readiness to serve as president. To do this, McCain has at times been as critical of the White House run by his own party as he has been of his Democratic opponent. The White House response, says one Republican source, has been to "embrace the distance," in an effort to help John McCain get elected.
But some at the White House thought the exclusion of a sitting vice president went too far.
