DON'T BE SO SURE CONDI RICE ISN'T INTERESTED

Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post says there's no reason to think Condoleezza Rice would want to be McCain's running mate:

...Rice has NEVER expressed even a passing interest in elected office. Before serving as National Security Adviser and then Secretary of State, Rice was the provost of Stanford University -- a far cry from the positions in the House, Senate and governors office that many of her Cabinet colleagues held. Her oft-stated dream job is not to serve as president but rather as commissioner of the National Football League.

Given her background and past public statements, it's hard to see Rice with even a passing interest in elected office....

Er, that's not what Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times says in her biography of Condi:

Rice ... talked about running for the United States Senate from Colorado while she was still a graduate student in the 1970s. On election night of 2004, rather than remaining home alone in her quiet Watergate apartment, Rice sat in the White House "war room" literally at the side of Karl Rove, the president’s powerful political adviser, and served as an impromptu aide helping to sift through election returns.

In more recent years, Rice has toyed with the idea of a race for governor of California, and her staff has said she would be interested in running when Arnold Schwarzenegger's term expires in 2011. In this election cycle, she has adamantly rejected any talk of running for president, but she has never ruled out accepting a spot as the vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket. Her staff members have pushed her hard in that direction.... (pp. xxvii-xxviii)

[Jim] Wilkinson [a senior adviser at the time] had made no secret that he wanted Rice to run for something someday -- president or vice president or governor of California.... (p. 272)

In mid-2007, some friends said that Rice was still interested in a future gubernatorial race in California or that she would be tempted by an offer of the vice presidential spot on the GOP ticket.... (p. 312)

There are a lot of reasons why Rice might not be McCain's running mate, but a distaste for electoral politics is not one of them.