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Is the eldest daughter of Dick Cheney considering a political career?

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
May 8th, 2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Liz Cheney, a former State Department official and the eldest daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney has spoken at six events in different corners of the sprawling state this year, especially busy on the GOP dinner circuit. Republicans from Cheyenne to Washington are now pondering if Liz Cheney is prepping for a political career.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Liz Cheney has been making the rounds at recent Wyoming political events. She says she intends to move back to Wyoming. Cheney has already hit four county Lincoln Day Dinners and keynoted the dinner following the Wyoming GOP convention last month. Cheney also accompanied and appeared on stage with her father when he made his first public appearance following his heart transplant at the state convention.

Currently residing in McLean, Virginia, there has been speculation among Republicans that she would eventually run for office there. A mother of five, Liz Cheney is seeing her oldest child off to college. Along with her husband Philip, Cheney has long considered returning to the state that her father represented in the House. The move back to Wyoming is not a sure thing.

Cheney's schedule and some of her rhetoric suggests someone who is eyeing an eventual campaign.

"Let me tell you why Wyoming's style of politics is so important," Cheney said last month at the Park County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner. "There is a personal touch here that gets amazing people into office."

Talking to radio journalists after speaking to Republicans at the Goshen County Lincoln-Reagan dinner, on the opposite end of the state from Cody, Cheney explained that her father was most proud of his days representing Wyoming.

"He has said to me that there is no title that he felt prouder of professionally than when he was called 'The Gentleman from Wyoming,'" Cheney said. She also added that her dad was also honored to serve as defense secretary and vice president.

Cheney has demurred when asked about her own political ambitions. "Right now, I'm focused on the presidential campaign and getting Mitt Romney elected," she told the Cody paper.

Those in Wyoming political circles say local friends of Cheney are encouraging her to look at a run. Few think she would be making stops in every corner of the state if she weren't at least mulling a future run.

"She's running up a lot of asphalt," Shawn Whitman, a Laramie native and former chief of staff for two Wyoming senators said of Cheney's schedule. "This is planting seeds of thought in people's minds. There's nobody I know that goes to those events unless they have a position in the party or they're trying to run for office."

Friends of Cheney say that she has no set plan to run and that she and her husband, an attorney, still need to reconcile issues related to their jobs and their children's education before they can even move.

"She's putting herself in a position now so she can eventually do it," said one fellow Washington Republican.

© 2012, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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