Late Friday night, Democratic presidential nominee-to-be Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) sent a confidential e-mail to his state campaign staffs requesting they prepare for the announcement of Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) as his running mate. Even though Obama promised his supporters who subscribed to his campaign's text messaging service that they would be the first to know of his choice, hundreds of leaks from his campaign staffers who got the early word forced the campaign to break yet another of its promises and announce the running mate early via their website and a press release (given that the campaign community of both parties already knew and were tracking the private jet flying Senator Biden into Chicago-O'Hare for the big announcement). That this news came fast on the heals of the revelation that the Obama campaign had not even vetted Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York) for the number two job, Clinton's loyal coalition of union members, feminist leftists, and some economically conservative Democrats were rightfully outraged. Even Monday midday, the Democratic rift was still apparent and widely covered by the mainstream media as the Democratic Convention kicked off in Denver. The corresponding lack of excitement in Democratic circles may have opened the door for Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) to make his own vice presidential selection that would generate such excitement and momentum to sweep the Republican ticket through November.

Until now, McCain's short list included staunch youngish conservatives, Tim Pawlenty (R-Minnesota), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), and Charlie Crist (R-Florida) among them, from a number of battle ground states. But any Republican selection would need to be able to go toe-to-toe with the attack dog-like, foreign policy-savvy Biden and this would seem to make much of the short list underwhelming choices. Mitt Romney (R-Massachusetts) is regarded as most likely and he has demonstrated a fierceness on the campaign trail that would match Biden's. But the tenacity of his campaign for the Republican nomination and dissatisfaction among Evangelical Christian voters over his Mormon religion could mean a split that mirrors the Democrats'. Joe Lieberman (ID-Connecticut) might draw from Clinton's primary voters to the McCain camp, but the Republican base would be even more split and the risks are very high. Tom Ridge (R-Pennsylvania), a former Homeland Security director, could compete with Biden in the foreign policy arena, but Biden's viciousness is liable to make Ridge look weak in comparison.

All the talk of a "Dream Ticket" was dashed by Obama's choice. We now know Hillary Clinton won't be a contender this fall. How can McCain capitalize on the Obama camp's hemorrhaging women voters? How can he draw some of the minority voters who mostly support the Obama ticket? How can he create intense and sudden excitement that cuts short Obama's suspected bump from this week's convention? None of the short list seems likely to do it. The biggest name in foreign policy today could do it. And McCain has just the maverick streak to choose Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (R-California).

Certainly criticism from Democrats of that choice would be intense, but maybe the Republicans need that to make the party base more supportive of the McCain campaign. Democrats and their friends in the mainstream media will stress Rice's central role in the Bush Administration and her particular contributions to the Iraq War. Yet, McCain's own support of the war and the recent successful surge is not something he has shied away from. The media and Obama's surrogates will also attack McCain for choosing a black woman. They're likely to do so cautiously, in a way that insinuates racism and sexism in McCain's camp by implying that McCain believes black Americans and women will vote for anyone just because she's black and a woman. That, of course, is the more dangerous attack, but much of the media has exhausted its credibility with many Americans and Obama's people run the risk of alienating many of their own supporters if the attack backfires. Besides, does anyone rightly think that Secretary Rice, with her record and standing in American government, would end up on a presidential ticket like Geraldine Ferraro did just because she's a woman?

The stakes are huge, but the conditions for a surprise "Dream Ticket" with Condoleezza Rice could scarcely be better. And let's be clear: from abolitionism and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation to Martin Luther King Jr. to Senator Edward Brooke to Colin Powell and Rice herself, black Americans have always had their leading advocate in the Republican Party.