Ugh. Dick Cheney's daughter. Gotta keep this bitch out of Washington.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/dick-cheney-lurks-behind-the-scenes-as-liz-cheney-plots-her-ambitious-climb
by David M. Drucker
| April 02, 2019 12:01 AM
Controversial former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was castigated by liberals as the evil genius behind former President George W. Bush, is now a steady, quiet, and influential force behind his daughter Liz Cheney's climb to the highest echelons of GOP politics.
A political duo since Dick Cheney, 78, left the West Wing in 2009, their partnership has extended to the House of Representatives, where Liz Cheney, 52, was elected the No. 3 ranking Republican after winning just her second term last year in the at-large seat her father once held. The Wyoming congresswoman’s chief of staff is a longtime Dick Cheney aide, and the former veep is a ubiquitous presence at strategy sessions and at fundraisers for her political operation.
“The vice president has been Liz’s top adviser during her brief congressional career,” said Cesar Conda, the elder Cheney’s former chief domestic policy adviser in the White House and now a partner at the Washington lobbying firm Navigators Global. “I can see her dad’s influence.”
Liz Cheney is focused on the job at hand — driving the party’s message on Capitol Hill as House Republican Conference chairwoman and helping the GOP win back the majority. But knowledgeable Republicans say she is not content as the House Republicans’ No. 3 and doesn’t see herself as limited by the pecking order that puts her behind House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La.
She broke with McCarthy and Scalise on an anti-hate resolution initiated by House Democrats, voting against it in a power move that raised eyebrows among Republicans and was interpreted as a signal that Cheney doesn’t plan to sit idle waiting for a leadership post above her to open before she makes a move. Republicans who know the congresswoman believe her sights are set on House minority leader, speaker — or even national office.
To realize her lofty aspirations, Liz Cheney has moved to establish credibility apart from her father and her prominent name, attempting to become a go-to resource for colleagues seeking messaging and policy expertise. The congresswoman also has assembled a kitchen cabinet of experienced Republican operatives, anchored by her father, whose experience in high-level national politics spans five decades, with stints as White House chief of staff, congressman, defense secretary, and vice president.
“She and her dad are very close. She values his advice and counsel,” Jeff Larson, a veteran Republican strategist who advises Liz Cheney, said. “But she is her own person.”
The two Cheneys are like-minded on key issues, especially having to do with U.S. foreign policy and national security, co-writing a book on the topic in 2015. Their advocacy for hawkish American global leadership, in the Republican tradition of former President Ronald Reagan, put them at odds with President Trump’s populist noninterventionism.
More than that, as Liz Cheney’s Republican colleagues in the House have discovered, the former vice president and his daughter are similar in temperament and personality.
Like her father, the congresswoman is outspoken, with little regard for niceties or protocol. And she prefers pulling the levers of power behind the scenes to public showboating. She is hardworking, accessible, and inquisitive, but not the most gregarious or social of politicians.
“She has all the warmth of her father,” chuckled a senior House Republican.
Liz Cheney’s direct, no-nonsense approach to leadership was a hallmark of the former vice president’s interpersonal relations long before the nation got to know him in 2000 as George W. Bush’s wry running mate.
“He was cordial and businesslike,” recalled Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, who worked for Dick Cheney on Capitol Hill in the 1980s when he served as House GOP Conference Chairman, the same leadership position his daughter holds. “He was a low-key, no-drama problem solver.”
Liz Cheney originally planned to run for Senate in 2014, announcing she would challenge Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., in the primary. She backed out for undisclosed family reasons and two years later sought the House after the incumbent Republican retired. Supporters believe her decision to enter leadership makes running for Senate less likely, though not a bid for national office.
Through a spokesman, Liz Cheney declined to comment for this story.