Update 7/13/12 - Condi's speech that electrified donors last month can be found here (including audio). Commentators point out that Condi is not pro-life and since Romney promised his running mate would be pro-life, talk of her candidacy may be rooted in a calculated attempt to divert attention from Obama attacks.
(Original Post) - A lot of talk has begun swirling suggesting she has emerged as the front runner. Drudge offers a headline to that effect. Peggy Noonan waxes enthusiastic:
Consider: A public figure of obvious and nameable accomplishment whose attainments can't be taken away from her. Washington experience—she wouldn't be learning on the job. Never run for office but no political novice. An academic, but not ethereal or abstract. A woman in a year when Republicans aren't supposed to choose a woman because of what is now called the 2008 experience—so the choice would have a certain boldness. A black woman in a campaign that always threatens to take on a painful racial overlay. A foreign-policy professional acquainted with everyone who's reigned or been rising the past 20 years.
It's easy to see how attractive a candidate she would be. But I've been given pause by a column Bret Stephens wrote back on May 1, 2012, titled, "Anyone But Condi." He acknowledged her attractiveness but then said:
There's only one problem. Ms. Rice was a bad national security adviser and a bad secretary of state. She was on the wrong side of some of the administration's biggest internal policy fights. She had a tendency to flip-flop when it came to the president's core priorities and her political misjudgment more than once cost Mr. Bush dearly. She was a muddler of differences at the national security council. Her tenure at State was notable mainly for the degree to which the bureaucracy ran her, not the other way around. [more... He cites details...]
So, we'll have to wait and see. Its interesting that I had clipped Stephen's column a month and a half ago. On the other hand, its easy to feel the energy and interest she would bring to what has so far been a rather lackluster campaign.