A Cheney nomination “would be a serious consideration because he really has been a defender of policies that the majority of people now think are successful,” McLaughlin told the Huffington Post. “Although right now a lot of people are focused on the economy, if there ever was some sort of foreign policy crisis people will look to Dick Cheney and say he had it right.”
Pointing to Cheney’s strong favorability rating among Republicans (66 percent in a May 2009 poll compared to Colin Powell’s 64 percent), McLaughlin also noted that the former vice president has a strong political platform from which to test the electoral waters.
“Right now he is writing a book, and I’m sure it will be very interesting to see how that book positions him,” McLaughlin said. “I always thought that Senator [Hillary] Clinton’s book positioned her for a run for the White House and I think it could be the same way with Dick Cheney.”
I don’t know if he frightens me more or less than Palin. And while I think either would almost certainly lose to Obama, there’s still something to the On Any Given Tuesday theory of general elections. It’s hard for me see a Cheney or Palin presidency as anything other than a sign of the apocalypse.
margarita
Hasn’t Cheney had like 300 heart attacks? Get real.
Jody
“Hasn’t Cheney had like 300 heart attacks?”
…And McCain had five cancer surgeries. On his FACE.
I yearn for a GOP that isn’t run by blithering sadists. Until the sane folks take the reins from them, the best we can hope for in office are corporate friendly centrists like Obama.
Dave C
Wouldn’t Dick Cheney running and winning the Presidency be basically the exact plot of the Star Wars prequels? Those movies sucked! No emperor Palpatine for me, thank you very much!
joes527
@margarita: THAT’S WHY he will have Palin as his running mate. So that on day 1 there will be someone 100% ready to take over if, god forbid, his health should fail.
Sentient Puddle
Yeah, and that turned out really grand for her, didn’t it?
freelancer
@Dave C:
It’s okay, George Clooney thinks he’s a Jedi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qszzV1tkzoE
shelley matheis
JK
Doug,
As clueless and incompetent as the MSM has become, even they can’t ignore Cheney’s serious health problem.
Cheney sustained the first of four heart attacks in 1978, at age 37. Subsequent attacks in 1984, 1988, and 2000[124] have resulted in moderate contractile dysfunction of his left ventricle. He underwent four-vessel coronary artery bypass grafting in 1988, coronary artery stenting in November 1994, and urgent coronary balloon angioplasty in December 1994.
h/t http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney#Health_problems
Montysano
2012 GOP strategy:
1. Nominate Dick Cheney
2. ????
3. Profit!
NR
Cheney is evil and smart.
Palin is evil and stupid.
I honestly don’t know which one would be worse.
mcc
May 2009:
Feel the momentum
freelancer
@JK:
You forgot about the one in January of 2001 where they removed his heart completely and replaced it with a rabid ferret on a treadmill.
Balconesfault
@JK: as if that’s really Dick Cheney there now
The really scary thing about Cheney is what the portrait in his closet must look like.
Dave C
@freelancer:
That was oddly comforting.
gopher2b
If the economy is in the toilet or only marginally better, Cheney can absolutely beat Obama. All he has to do is pick a viable VP because of his heart attacks. Anyone who doesn’t think he can win is in deep denial.
beltane
The Apocalypse would seem an attractive option after about five minutes of a Cheney/Palin administration.
sarah in brooklyn
won’t he be like 106 in 2012?
Michael
I can see his shadowy buddies making something happen along the way to ensure a victory. Something splashy, something violent.
Can I go on record now as hoping for a powerful American enemy to betray America to should a Cheney dictatorship come to pass?
malraux
@NR: The other big difference is that Cheney is a smooth liar, while Palin is an idiotic one.
shelley matheis
shelley matheis
JK
The Sum of Dick Cheney
“Those who have known him [Cheney] over the years remain astounded by what they describe as his almost autistic indifference to the thoughts and feelings of others. ‘He has the least interest in human beings of anyone I have ever met,’ says John Perry Barlow, his former supporter. Cheney’s freshman-year roommate, Steve Billings, agrees: ‘If I could ask Dick one question, I’d ask him how he could be so unempathetic.’”
h/t The Curse of Dick Cheney, Aug 25, 2004, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6450422/the_curse_of_dick_cheney
freelancer
@malraux:
BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!
That was a good one. I think you’re confusing “smooth” with “Jaw-Droppingly Brazen”.
America murmers, “Jesus! What Balls!”
eemom
in the case of Cheney I think you can skip “sign of” and go directly to The Apocalypse. It’s long been my theory that he is actually the Antichrist, which explains, among other things, why he is still alive despite all medical evidence to the contrary.
ruemara
Serously? Bring it. I know republicans who I consider almost too stupid to stand who spit on Dick Cheney. It’s gonna take a heck of a lot of hacking to give him 51%.
Jamie
does Dick have Asperger’s?
blahblahblah
No. The real sign of the Apocalypse already came – in my mailbox. The state of Massachusetts summoned me for Jury Duty. I responded like the good citizen that I am. They set a date for my service. And then… in the mail it came: A cancellation notice.
Never in my life did I expect to somehow get out of Jury Duty before I even arrived at court. That’s a sign of the Apocalypse rolling in like thunder clouds.
kay
Alberto Gonzales is directly contradicting former President Cheney, on the role of the attorney general and the supremacy of the rule of law.
They’re rolling out Bush DOJ lawyer-underlings to refute the former Bush AG, Alberto Gonzales.
I don’t believe I have ever seen that before. They’re ditching their former “boss” and lining up behind the real boss, Cheney. Where will Mukasey choose to stand? I’m betting with Cheney.
I always thought Gonzales was a “Bush guy” and not a “Cheney guy”. Two warring camps, maybe? This will be fun.
Linkmeister
“a sign of the apocalypse”
Just a sign? It would be the Apocalypse!
Karen
Brilliant! Cheney could tap into all the nostalgic yearning for a Stroessner or Pinochet.
BR
The danger with Cheney is that he will lie with a straight face about anything and everything. He will lie to the media, which does poorly when facing someone who persistently lies like Cheney and daughter do. He will pull 10 completely false October surprises.
And from what we’ve seen, beltway pundits will still shine his shoes.
Clark
Why would anyone think that Hillary’s book was the thing that set up her for a run for president? Wasn’t it that she was a high-profile first lady, then a high-profile senator with a popular former president as a husband?
If writing a book qualifies you for a deep run in the presidential primaries, I think I’ll compile all my Facebook updates and tweets into a 300 page tome and self publish the damn thing.
heet
He is a ticking timebomb. A guy who has his first MI at 37 does not have a good prognosis.
Max
According to the HuffPo, it’s going to be President Scarborough…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-ostroy/president-scarborough-mor_b_273620.html
Or, President Dead Intern in His Office Sponsored by Starbucks.
dmsilev
@Dave C:
No, in the movies Palpatine managed to hide his evilness until after he engineered the destruction of the Republic.
-dms
joes527
@BR:
His shoes? You have a higher opinion of beltway pundits than I do.
jenniebee
@freelancer: saw that the other day, best trailer I’ve seen in years. Can’t wait for the movie.
McGeorge Bundy
@Jamie: I do and I doubt it. Putting it mildly he’s just an uncaring man.
Jay B.
@gopher2b:
There’s no way — NONE — that Cheney could be President. I’m not delusional, nor hysterical. The Stupid Season is getting to us all, I understand that, but let’s try and maintain some perspective.
Remember, just because some people are yelling louder they aren’t smarter.
joes527
hmmmm…. Is this what moderation looks like? (I seem to have said s-h-o-e-s) I guess in the future I’ll use the euphemism “dick pills” instead of any direct reference to footwear.
/meta off
Grumpy Code Monkey
Are you kidding? Cheney’s ticker’ll give out early 2013 (assuming he survives the campaign), Caribou Barbie will quit the next day when it dawns on her that she’ll actually have to, you know, do shit, and Nancy Pelosi becomes President of the United States.
It can’t lose, I tell you.
Leelee for Obama
@blahblahblah: Did you have to fill out a questionaire? Sometimes, they pre-decide you’ll never get through voir dire. My default lack of trust in law-enforcement would likely get me kicked.
Cyrus
@gopher2b:
I guess I must be Egyptian, then, because he can’t win. His approval ratings while in office were comparable to HPV. Cheney is Limbaugh without the speaking ability, Bush without the sense of humor and Emperor Palpatine without the grand vision. If elected he would be the oldest president, and as has already been noted he’s been having heart attacks for almost half his life. The base is the only part of America that likes him, and that’s relatively easy when it’s just “approve/disapprove”; they would find it much more difficult to rally around the rest of his family. His one strength is that he is belligerent both personally and politically, but that was never enough in the first place and certainly wouldn’t be enough now.
A Cheney candidacy would be hilarious, and disastrous for Republicans.
JC
One thing I think to keep in mind. I know that historical analogies are inept, but the current weakness (I should say “bought and paid for”) of our government, which keeps postponing real fixes to our issues, is that in a deteriorating and “things are falling down” nation, lots of times, people do turn to the demagogues.
Germany in the 30’s is an indication of this. A left government, trying its best, beset by problems and opposition, from the left (some) and even more so on the right, at some point, manufactures an outrage, and gains power.
The intellectuals scoffed at Hitler. He was an idiot, the same way GW Bush is an idiot.
And yet, that idiocy didn’t stop either man from being elected.
Given the bought and paid for nature of the U.S. system, I’m thinking the only way to get anything done now, is by ‘paying the vig’, to the already existing industries.
This, I think, is the Rahm approach. Don’t piss off existing industries, that then funnel their money to Republican opponents. Thus leaving the Democrats in a weak situation.
The problem with this?
People notice this huge percentage – this vig – of the taxpayer money, being funneled right back to corporate profits.
And people get pissed about it.
And people’s reluctance to pay taxes is doubled.
And then politically you can’t raise taxes.
And then the government is un-funded.
And eventually, services are cut drastically – as in California – and life is made worse for everyone, including the corporations, because everyone is simply poorer, except for the top 1%.
Which again, fuels outrage – instability – and the thirst for a “strong man” who isn’t afraid of anyone.
And then you have the opening, again, for a Cheney or a Palin.
I’m not sure what can be done, really. What breaks the cycle above, if the government and the media are that completely dysfunctional?
scav
@Linkmeister: I knew I could count on someone to point out the bleak reality. Signifier / Signified, we’ve got it down.
Donald G
John McLaughlin: Issue One: THE EMPEROR STRIKES BACK. Dick Cheney for President in 2012? [Insert quote from article at top of Dougj’s post.] It could happen! Pat Buchanan?
Pat B: Yes, John. Dick Cheney is just what this country needs. He’s a good American, a real American, a white American. He has the strong leadership skills of a Mussolini, which this country so desperately needs after fifty-plus years of liberal commie subversion sapping our collective will to do what is right and necessary.
McLauglin: Eleanor Clift?
Eleanor: Mussolini is right. Dick Cheney is a barely disguised fascist. It’s no wonder Pat likes him so much.
[Much crosstalk and arguing ensues.]
John McL: You’re all wrong. The correct answer is “I love lollipops.”
doot-doot, doot-DOOt, do-dootle-up.
KG
how can 66% of Republicans like Dick Cheney and 64% like Colin Powell? That’s a shit ton of overlap.
kay
@BR:
It’s premature. We’re going to learn a lot about both the Bush White House and Dick Cheney.
It happens after every administration, and this administration seems to have been deeply divided on some fairly bed-rock issues, second term, anyway.
Cheney’s bragging about how he was the driver behind the push to invade Iran. But, Cheney failed in that objective, because some powerful people stopped him. He didn’t prevail. I think Rice and Gates stopped him. I don’t know what Bush’s role was, but Rice was clearly in the Bush camp.
He’s not omnipotent. They eventually tied his hands.
ironranger
@shelley matheis:
McLaughlin meant the majority of his own people think Dick’s policies were successful. What other americans think is inconsequential to Lord John.
Cris
He’s more machine now than man.
Gus
@JK:
Is that Grateful dead songwriter John Perry Barlow? That’s weird.
Laura W
This is my nomination for Funniest DougJ Blog Post Title of September 2009.
Yes, I am just THAT confident!
James K. Polk, Esq.
@Cris: Damn, beat me to it…
“… twisted and evil”.
dday
I believe he’s ineligible, having already served two terms as
dictatorPresident.cleek
ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease!
please let Cheney be the nominee!
ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease!
ironranger
@Max:
Good gawd. What a thought.
This am I think he was holding up a paper with front page about Eliot Spitzer & Mika was saying no, no. But Joe went right ahead & pointed to the headline, “2nd Coming” & grinned like a junior high jackass.
freelancer
http://www.chunkypop.com/m_pictures/Firey_bird.jpg
we’ll meet again, don’t know where, dont know when. but I know well meet again, some sunny day.
cleek
Cheney attending Obama’s inauguration in a wheelchair. i’m not sure the GOP wants to go back to the old angry white guy well against Obama again, regardless of how the Bush/Cheney economy is doing.
cleek
damn i miss comment editing.
Pender
Cheney is better than Obama on gay equality at the moment. If nothing changed, I’d vote for Cheney.
freelancer
@Pender:
Have you been watching Glenn Beck? Your name is spelled
B-E-N-D-E-R
Montysano
@Jay B.:
They don’t give a shit about being smarter, they care about winning….. or some variant of winning that looks a lot like nihilism. And right now, with the help of an MSM that loves sensationalism, they are winning, simply by yelling the loudest and being the craziest. Look at the shift that’s occurred in the health care debate: it’s largely because the adherents of a defeated and discredited philosophy are willing to tell the Big Lie, yell louder, and act like loons.
Zifnab
@cleek: I assumed the wheel chair was just to score pity points in advance of indictment. You’ll notice he hasn’t been so weak or frail that he couldn’t appear on a few dozen Sunday Morning pundit shows between then and now. Possibly because he doesn’t feel the need for pity points now that our AG has basically come out and said we’re not touching anyone at the top.
You know, when Obama took office, people compared him to FDR and Kennedy and LBJ and Nixon and Reagen. It would be sad if he ended up a Ford.
JackieBinAZ
I don’t think he’s the one in the family with future political aspirations.
WereBear
To actually float Cheney as a possibility shows just what kind of bench the Republicans are looking at; it’s not a bench so much as it’s a rickety wicker footstool that has been out in the rain for seventy years.
However, should this go forward, it will be a fantastic opportunity for “stunt babies” to be offered to Cheney for kissing while campaigning, as no actual parent would risk having their infant’s head bitten off.
I hear Vern Troyer is always looking for work.
Zifnab
@Montysano: To be fair, it’s a shift that we even are having a health care debate. This time in 2001, it was all about who could give the richest guy the biggest tax cut. In 2003, it was all about whether the Patriot Act 2 would allow warrantless enemas. In 2005, we got to discuss whether we throw just all the immigrants into indentured servitude or shoot them on sight at the border.
Discuss whether or not Nancy Pelosi is going to eat the aborted husk of your dead grandmother is almost progress.
Joey Maloney
@Gus:
Not so weird about Barlow. He’s from Wyoming and knew Cheney way back when.
Mark S.
I can’t imagine Cheney up in New Hampshire visiting donut shops and kissing babies. He has to be about the least charismatic politician I’ve ever seen; I’m sure I’m not the only person who thinks of Mr. Burns when I see him.
joeyess
Two Words:
Nineteen Percent
Skepticat
@blahblahblah: The last two times I was called, the check-in phone call the morning of the scheduled service saved me a trip to the courthouse. I like the way Massachusetts has set-up the one-day/one-trial system.
Jay B.
@Montysano:
The shift in the health care debate? People still support it! The “debate” has, as the previous post shows, been turned into another political campaign (I lived through the primaries and the general — and the health care “debate” has been just as stupid!) and many folks are underinformed, kept ignorant or are simply confused and it’s tough to blame them.
That said, on the basic principle, most people still want health care reform. The GOP, whatever else they’ve been offering, it ain’t that. The Concern Troll Yuppie Couple Harry and Louise have turned into screaming yahoos shouting down their fellow citizens. The Democrats, masters of self-sabatoge, have been divided between its progressive and corporate members with Obama carefully straddling the fence.
But health care reform has yet to be routed. In fact, a good plan looks certain in the House. The Senate, always a thicket of thorns, it looks less likely, but not impossible. That’s the reality and would be regardless of the sideshows.
Even Obama’s popularity has remained more buoyant than Clinton’s did when he was pitching his proposal in 1994. I worked on Capitol Hill back then — you knew the wheels were coming off. It was a mess of a different kind.
The real issue — again, outside of the screamers, who, really, have done approximately shit — will be if the deal will be SO sweetheart to insurers as to be a mandate without any cost-measures or will have a decent public option as a counterweight. If the latter, the Democrats have a major victory. If not, the Blue Dogs/Obama factions have put 2010 in play for the House majority.
None of those things have changed, despite the focus on these idiotic elements of our Congress and our population.
kth
If there is a major terrorist between now and New Hampshire 2012, Cheney would be back in the game. No doubt his partisans are praying nightly for such an event, preferably with at least a five-figure death toll.
Cheney has not even the economic folk wisdom of Mitt Romney, so if it’s still the economy, stupid, Cheney will finish out of the money.
dr. bloor
I can’t imagine Cheney up in New Hampshire visiting donut shops and kissing babies. He has to be about the least charismatic politician I’ve ever seen; I’m sure I’m not the only person who thinks of Mr. Burns when I see him.
This.
Cheney can come across as being a good deal more vigorous than he actually is because he sticks to controlled environments in which he is invariably the Chief Controller. The daily rigors of campaigning and having to deal with the attendant bullshit, not to mention the endless interactions with the little people, would kill him.
Xenos
@blahblahblah: Don’t worry, you will be back on the short list at the minimum possible time.
They called me in last time, and I got to sit across the street from the Norfolk County Superior Court for the better part of the day. Looking for a way to show I was unsuitable for jury duty I brought a book on Sacco and Vanzetti. A young guy also on duty brought the collected works of Ward Churchill. Neither of us got picked. I think he won the award for most antisocial for the day.
arguingwithsignposts
Two words: Twenty-Thirteen. That’s when ANY of these plans will start to work. Health insurance sucks now. And unless people see some changes prior to 2013, passing health care reform isn’t going to do a bit of good in 2010, especially if the economy continues shedding jobs.
Ash
66% approval of Republicans, huh? Which is, uh…20% approval all together. That’s really super fucking impressive!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@cleek:
I ask you to ponder this moment, taken from the halcyon days of liberal media bias and Democratic party dominance, coming a mere 4 years after the Dems unloaded a historic can of whoop-ass on the GOP, and at a time when the leading GOP candidate of the day was widely despised, had a reputation as a liar and a loser, and was profoundly anti-charismatic.
Of course today we don’t have anything to worry about. It’s not as if the current administration is embroiled in a war which could turn unpopular and divisive. Nor is the economy at risk, or race a factor in contemporary politics. So there is that.
Svensker
@joes527:
His shoes? You have a higher opinion of beltway pundits than I do.
I think you meant “lower.”
Svensker
Oh crap. I said s-h-o-e-s.
scarshapedstar
Do people really think he’s gonna live another 8 years?
Tsulagi
@Zifnab:
Yeah. Well, if so, his 2012 fundraising campaign could use the slogan “Cash for Clunkers.”
JK
@Joey Maloney: @Gus:
John Perry Barlow has excellent taste in music. The Grateful Dead are one of the all-time great rock bands. When it comes to politics, Barlow has sometimes been out to lunch. With regards to Dick Cheney, Barlow has thankfully come to his senses and now realizes that Cheney is, as Baubu from Seinfeld would say, “a very,very bad man.”
Sasha
It wouldn’t be Cheney/Palin, it’d be Palin/Cheney. Why the heck would Cheney want the high visibility of being president?
He’d prefer working behind the scenes while a simpleton figurehead president gets the public glare. It worked for him before.
joes527
@Svensker: Has anyone ever explained this bit of auto moderation?
I mean, I understand the s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-t thing, but s-h-o-e-s? Are they afraid someone might be offended by h-o-e-s?
We could all promise to call each other cocksuckers* instead of h-o-e-s if that would make things simpler.
* I want to be Al Swearengen when I grow up.
Tiparillo
Palin/Cheney 2012 – SockPuppet Take 2
gypsy howell
Oh hell. I remember sitting in a bar when Reagan was elected and talking about how “this was the apocalypse.” The end of America as we knew it.
And then when a bunch of fucking morons elected George Bush. Twice. Another sign of the apocalypse.
Turns out I was right. It just took 20 or 30 years.
Cheney? Sure, why not.
Batocchio
Why not a joint ticket, and then the entire world can be engulfed in a black hole?
Splitting Image
Cheney 2012 = Giuliani 2008.
I agree that a Cheney candidacy would be such a disaster for the country that it is worth guarding against the possibility, but at this point I’d say Olympia Snowe has a better chance at being the nominee than Dick Cheney, and I’m basing this on the idea that Snowe has no chance whatsoever.
She could, however, win the New Hampshire primary, which means her chances of being the nominee are non-zero. I have real trouble picturing Cheney winning any of the early primaries. If he can’t pull out a win somewhere, his only chance is to keep his fingers crossed until the big states vote on Super Tuesday and then win all of the big ones in close three-way races.
Somehow I don’t see that as Cheney’s way. If he mounts a comeback, it would be more likely through convincing the eventual winner to put him in charge of selecting a running mate. Why mess with a formula that worked before?
Midnight Marauder
@gopher2b:
If the economy is in the toilet or only marginally better, Cheney can absolutely beat Obama. All he has to do is pick a viable VP because of his heart attacks. Anyone who doesn’t think he can win is in deep denial.
I guess my denial runs extra deep, then.
gnomedad
@cleek:
“Mein Fuehrer, I can valk!”
Midnight Marauder
@Pender:
Cheney is better than Obama on gay equality at the moment. If nothing changed, I’d vote for Cheney.
That’s one of the most moronic comments I’ve seen on the interwebs in a long time. How about you do a little more thorough cost-benefit analysis between the two and what the would bring to the office (and country) overall, and then make that decision. I doubt it would come out the same way.
Not to mention that Cheney in 2012 would have to pander to the base on gay issues. You really think he’s championing marriage equality as part of his platform if he somehow gets the nomination?
stinkwrinkle
@Mark S.: Sir, you are correct. Even the junior Bush had a smarmy shit-eating grin that could warm the hearts of the lesser breeds of man. Has anyone seen the misshapen, twisted snarl that consumes Cheney’s face when flighty daydreams of torturing babies with lighters passes through his scabrous brain? I give him one N.H. diner visit, tops, and children will scream, young brides will cry in great whooping heaves, and the blood will drain from the faces of vigorous men. A shadow will pass over the sun, bunnies will shed fur and die, and Cheney will be wheeled back into his vault to wait for a more propitious century.
Davis X. Machina
If Nixon’s Law (“Nominate the best hater”) is in effect, Cheney’s a shoo-in.
Tonal Crow
Jesus H. bin Laden Kee-rist is this blog getting depressing. Cheney for President? I should just slit my wrists right now.
Malcontent
@JK:
Jesus, I hate these damn armchair psychologists. People with high functioning autism are not indifferent to the feelings of others, they simply are not capable of recognizing anything but the extremes of emotion. If you outright tell them how you feel, they will take it into account. What Mr. Barlow is actually describing is psychopathy.
DMD
President Cheney would be much worse than Palin. Palin is just slow, Cheney is smart and objectively evil.
feebog
Cheney runnig for President? Come on, this was floated by John McLaughlin, another mean sprited senile old prick. And thats Cheney’s base.
Wile E. Quixote
I’m just hoping that the Cardiac Kid will have the big one soon, preferably very dramatically on a Sunday morning show, and will end up buried in his native soil, at a crossroads, during a full moon, with his head cut off, his mouth stuffed full of garlic and a stake through his heart, or whatever passes for it, whatever it takes, so he doesn’t rise again.
Joe
I don’t think of Mr. Burns when I think of Cheney, I think about Old Man Potter in the wheelchair.
JG
The posting title made me think of this, and it’s somehow oddly appropriate almost thirty years later:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mmxo3QgC88
Kirk Spencer
If Dick Cheney runs for president in 2012, he will get the Republican nomination. Yes, his poll numbers for everyone were in the tank. His polling numbers among Republicans, however, both were and are quite high – higher than all the other potential nominees at this time.
Would he win? Now, you can laugh (or cry). If things have gotten so bad that Obama’s national numbers are below Cheney’s, we have a lot more problems to hand.
Pender
@Midnight Marauder:
I agree that it’s likely that Cheney would change his official stance to get the nomination. If the two candidates’ positions remain as they are now, though, I’ll vote for Cheney without a moment’s hesitation. It’s regrettable, but I’m not going to vote for a candidate who openly advocates for my de jure second-class citizenship — no one should be expected to do so. Perhaps, instead of blaming me, you could blame Obama for taking a position against equality.