Another Big Cheney Advantage Over 08 Candidates

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s turbulent final years as first lady? While Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York, frequently invokes husband Bill on the stump, she has managed to avoid any mention of his impeachment and the unpleasantness leading to it.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, almost never brings up campaign finance overhaul, perhaps his signature achievement in the Senate. The McCain-Feingold law is loathed by many of the conservatives Mr. McCain is courting, and he typically only discusses the measure when opponents hurl it at him — as Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, did in a debate on Tuesday.

For his part, Mr. Romney likes to promote his experience as a governor, but is often coy about where he governed. (Hint: it is viewed by many Republicans as an outpost of run-amok liberalism.) In campaign ads running in early primary states, Mr. Romney boasts that he was “the Republican governor who turned around a Democratic state” and “vetoed hundreds of spending appropriations.” But you would never know where.

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When Mr. Romney does mention Massachusetts, it is hardly with native pride: Responding to a question during the debate, he referred to his home of almost 40 years as “that very difficult state” and “the toughest of states.”

In an internal Romney campaign memorandum obtained by The Boston Globe in February, Massachusetts is listed as a potentially effective “bogeyman” for Mr. Romney (along with “European-style socialism,” “Jihadism” and “Hillary Clinton.”)

“Romney is trying to say that he foiled a robbery in a brothel, the brothel being Massachusetts,” said Ralph Whitehead, a political analyst at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. “But the question people will ask is, what was he doing in the brothel in the first place?”

One big advantage Dick Cheney has is that he is no typical politician. The man's life is an open book. What you see is what you get. Everyone knows what Dick Cheney stands for. He never secretly supported campaign finance "reform," nor has he ever been in a brothel. The guy is the real deal. No secretiveness, just authenticity. The more you think about it, the plainer it seems Dick Cheney really would be a breath of fresh air, both in the 2008 race, and for the country as President.