Rice is the first black woman to serve as national security advisor and her performance has been stellar. Based on her background, this achievement is unsurprising. She grew up in Birmingham under the regime of segregation. One of her childhood friends was killed in the 1963 church bombing that was one of the events that turned the tide against Jim Crow and in favor of the civil rights movement. This did not stop her from entering the University of Denver at the age of 15. Initially intending to be a concert pianist, Rice was eventually drawn to foreign policy, with a concentration in Soviet affairs. She was offered a professorship at Stanford before she even completed her PhD. and by the time she was 35, the first President Bush was telling Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that Rice told him everything he knew about the USSR.

This combination of inspiring biography, personal achievement and conservative realism in her foreign policy views makes Rice an attractive candidate to Republicans who wish to forge a more inclusive party without abandoning principle. Yet on one question, conservatives are questioning whether a Bush-Rice ticket would abandon a crucial principle.

On that vexing topic of abortion, Rice has reportedly described herself as "mildly pro-choice" on one occasion and "reluctantly pro-choice" on another. It is worth noting that she has not used her pro-choice views to enhance her media celebrity status or invoke her "more tolerant than thou position" vis-à-vis pro-life Republicans, as Richard Riordan, Arlen Specter and Christine Todd Whitman are wont to do - although it is equally worth noting that Colin Powell’s views on the subject started out as mild as Rice’s and became more strident over time as their political mileage became more apparent. Moreover, the speculation over Rice being on a national ticket has generated some surprisingly fresh thoughts on the whole abortion debate - I especially recommend Patrick Ruffini’s "rant" on the subject.

But we now have what might amount to a test case as to how the selection of a pro-choice running mate by a pro-life Republican incumbent would play among pro-life voters. Judging from the initial reaction Ohio Gov. Bob Taft has faced, it is the sort of thing that makes pro-life Republicans - who are the voters within the GOP with the most intense feelings about abortion and who actually base their votes on the issue - very angry indeed.

Gov. Taft picked Columbus Councilwoman Jennette Bradley as his running mate now that current Lt. Gov. Maureen O’Connor is running for the Ohio Supreme Court. Bradley, like Rice, is an African-American woman and a Republican. She is also pro-choice. This selection has already cost Taft the Ohio Right to Life Society’s endorsement and has brought protests from conservative activists. There were strong, though ultimately unsuccessful, movements to revoke his invitation to two county GOP fundraising dinners in February. In Warren County, some in attendance at a Lincoln Day walked out when the governor rose to speak. The Columbus Dispatch reports that many social conservatives are threatening to boycott the election entirely, including the executive director of the state Christian Coalition. One GOP state legislator is even urging Republicans to vote for Taft’s liberal Democratic opponent.

Of course, there are some important distinctions that need to be made. George W. Bush is more popular among GOP conservatives than anyone since Ronald Reagan. Taft’s conservative credentials have been questioned before and he likely would have been opposed by many grassroots conservatives in 1998 if Ohio Republican Party chairman Bob Bennett hadn’t persuaded then state Treasurer Ken Blackwell to drop his nascent gubernatorial bid and run for secretary of state instead. Second, Rice is a woman whose views on the issues she has a record on are certifiably conservative. Her views on abortion, to the extent that we know them, seem moderate and are not central to her political persona. Bradley on the other hand has sparred with GOP social conservatives for years. There’s nothing "mild" about her pro-choice position and she had already