Vice-Presidential Stakes

By John F. Dickerson/Washington

This week GEORGE W. BUSH named his father's Defense Secretary, DICK CHENEY, to head his vice-presidential selection team, upping speculation that General COLIN POWELL, Cheney's partner during the Gulf War, might be approached. Some in Bushland feel only Cheney can persuade his old friend to take the post--but it will be tough. Not only has Powell had a long-standing disregard for the No. 2 job, but sources say he was particularly disturbed by Bush's South Carolina campaign--his failure to take a position on the Confederate flag flying above the state capitol, and his stop at Bob Jones University. Both hit home for the Powell family. As a young soldier, Powell and his wife often drove through the state in the early '60s, when the Stars and Bars was raised in defiance of new civil rights laws. And Powell's son Michael married a white woman--a practice well outside Bob Jones' newly abandoned edict against interracial dating. Recently it has been Bush's former rival that Powell has warm feelings for, praising JOHN MCCAIN for his mea culpa over the South Carolina flag issue.

--By John F. Dickerson/Washington