WASHINGTON -- As Democrats revel in the riches of diversity, they must also wonder at the cosmic alignment that produced both a minority and a woman as viable candidates.

A bonanza on the one hand; a bit of bad luck on the other. Someone, after all, has to lose.

Why couldn't it have been one or the other, but not both at once? Or best of all worlds, both in one person?

Alas, Condi Rice is a Republican and she's still not running for president. That hasn't stopped Crystal Dueker, a 50-something volunteer from North Dakota, and Rich Holt, a 20-something African-American attorney from Pennsylvania, from trying to make Condi run.

They have changed their goal since the fall, however, from president to vice president Rice. Dueker, communications director for the 527 group she formed, "Think Condi," travels around the country at her own expense in a van covered with Condi stickers.

Her luck ran thin when she was focused on the Oval Office, principally because Rice wasn't running. No problem. Dueker simply adapted.

Today, she and about 10,000 Condiacs across the country are hoping Rice will be the veep pick for whatever white male gets the GOP nomination. Anyone will do fine, says Dueker, as long as he mounts the convention stage come September and announces that he wants Condi by his side.

Chatting on the phone as Republicans prepared to head to the South Carolina primary polls, Dueker practiced possible combos like a teenager testing boyfriends' names. Rudy and Condi. McCain and Condi. Thompson and Rice. Romney 'n' Rice?

Asked whether Rice's record with the Iraq War and her close association with George W. Bush might be a negative for the GOP ticket, Dueker insists that voters think of Rice in terms of her role as secretary of state. She recites a catalogue of diplomatic accomplishments.

You'd think Dueker were a Rice employee, though the two have never met. Dueker hinges her hopes that Condi would accept a vice presidential run on a brief comment from a 2005 interview with NBC's Tim Russert. When asked whether another Web site (not Dueker's) supporting Condi for president should be removed, Rice defended the group's free-speech rights.

For Rice's ardent fans, that was as good as a wink and a nod, a subliminal signal that she would ride out when the time was right. Continued...