US: Secretary of State Rice is now a viable contender in the 2008 presidential race, writes Glenn Kessler in Washington
When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently announced that the administration was willing to join negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme, she did not go to the drab State Department briefing room. Instead, in full view of the TV cameras, she strolled about 50 feet to the microphones set up in the middle of the vast and ornate Benjamin Franklin Room, evoking a visual of the president walking through the White House to the East Room for a prime-time news conference.
The setting of the Iran announcement at the end of May was no accident, but intended to demonstrate the seriousness of the administration's policy shift. Careful attention to stage-managed images has helped define Rice's tenure at the State Department, including the way she meets foreign guests in front of the cameras and how her staff has arranged for celebrities from other countries to meet her at airports overseas.
This picture of the hard-working secretary of state on the move appears to be integral to her growing clout and her status as the most popular cabinet member in a beleaguered administration.
Rice's job-approval rating in a Harris survey last month was 20 percentage points higher than that of President Bush. A Washington Post poll of 1,000 adults conducted last month suggests that public appeal is based on both a reputation for professionalism and an ability to avoid being identified with the administration's most unpopular decisions. Although she was Bush's national security adviser during the Iraq invasion, a large percentage of those surveyed - including opponents of the war - say she had little or nothing to do with the problems in Iraq.
"She is able to use external leverage created by her public popularity to win internal struggles" such as the change in posture toward Iran, said Derek Chollet, who helped former secretaries James Baker and Warren Christopher write their memoirs. "I would definitely rank her as one of the most effective secretaries in increasing the public image of her office, which enhances the State Department and improves the image of the secretary of state around the world."
Rice's celebrity overseas may be even more pronounced than in the US, making her a truly global figure. In Kiev last December, for instance, university students sat rapt as Rice answered questions about her "recipe for success" and what it meant to be the "most influential woman" working for Bush. On a trip to Baghdad in April, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest Shia political party, pulled Rice aside to ask if she would write a note to his granddaughter.
Esquire magazine, for its July issue, asked more than 1,000 men to choose among 14 notable women who they would most want to attend a dinner party. Rice was placed first, ahead of Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston. Rice told the Greensboro (North Carolina) News & Record that she was stunned at the result. "I'm not sure I would choose me," she said.
In the Post survey, twice as many people had a favourable opinion about Rice as viewed her unfavourably.
These positive impressions have made Rice a viable contender in the 2008 presidential race, though she routinely tries to play down speculation that she would consider running. In the Post survey, 54 per cent said they would either definitely vote for her or consider voting for her.
Without encouragement from Rice, grass-roots campaigns have sprung up to encourage her to run, though she insists she wants to return to California and teaching.
Mark McKinnon, who was Bush's media adviser in 2000 and 2004, said Rice has almost unlimited political potential, should she decide to change roles. "She's a superfecta: a Republican, a woman, an African American and secretary of state," he said. "I don't think there's a hotter star on the Republican political horizon than Condi Rice."
McKinnon said he believes that Rice "will not be a candidate for president in 2008, but that she absolutely will be on the shortlist for vice-president. Especially if Hillary is the nominee, but I think in any case".
As national security adviser, Rice appeared frequently on television as an occasionally stiff defender of the president's policies. But she appeared to achieve stardom early in her tenure as secretary of state when, a month after taking the post, she was photographed walking past hundreds of cheering soldiers in Germany wearing a black skirt, a black coat and knee-high black boots that evoked the film The Matrix. Rice routinely wears expensive and flashy designer outfits.
She is especially effective in town-hall-style meetings in which she engages in extended give-and-take with the audience. She still delivers many of her speeches in the pedantic style of a former university lecturer, but her staff has learned to keep the speeches relatively short (about 20 minutes) so she can then take questions for 40 minutes.
Overseas, Rice uses her personal story of growing up in the segregated South to demonstrate humility about the American experience. She will frequently note that "my ancestors in Mr Jefferson's Constitution were three-fifths of a man". In Sydney earlier this year there was an audible gasp from the nearly all-white crowd when she said she did not have a white classmate until she moved to Denver in 10th grade.
Rice combines her personal touch with an unusually close relationship with the president. She was extraordinarily close to Bush as national security adviser and still speaks to him at least once a day, if not more.
Her predecessor, Colin Powell, was personally popular from his previous role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but he did not have a close partnership with Bush, and as secretary he did not have a feel for visual flair.
Rice has travelled about 490,000 miles in the 17 months since becoming secretary - it took Powell twice as long to compile such mileage - including a 31,000-mile slog through Latin America and Asia.
But Rice has combined travel with an unusual attention to visual detail, intended to show viewers at home that she is working and those overseas that she cares about their cultural traditions.
To highlight a new effort to reach out to Europe after the tensions of the Iraq invasion, she combined a groundbreaking speech in Paris with a visit to the Hector Berlioz Conservatory (she is a talented pianist). The local news media avidly covered her as she watched children perform. A trip to India included a stop at a cultural icon, Humayun's Tomb in New Delhi, which resulted in coverage across South Asia and large photo displays in US newspapers.
Rice's trips have included photos of her watching potential Chinese Olympians ice skating in Beijing, visiting a top-secret facility carved into a mountain near Seoul that would direct a war with North Korea, and awarding medals at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
Rice has added an unusual innovation, at the urging of former senior adviser Jim Wilkinson: cultural airport greeters. Instead of being met by protocol chiefs or foreign ministers, Rice's office has requested that the secretary be met by a country's pop culture heroes, especially sports or music stars, guaranteeing extensive coverage by the local media.
In Tokyo, Rice was met at the airport by Konishiki, a sumo champion. A photo of the 600-pound wrestler hugging the much smaller Rice even appeared on the front page of the Financial Times. And in Belgium, the media widely covered her meeting with cyclist Eddy Merckx, who won the Tour de France five times.