BUSH/GIULIANI?

Yeah, right.

A well-placed source says that the president will “most likely” drop Dick Cheney from his re-election ticket and his first choice for a replacement is former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.

“The issue of Cheney’s health will probably be given as the reason,” says the insider. “There’s a short list of possible replacements, and Rudy is at the top of the list.”

Kicking and screaming. Kicking. And Screaming. That's how Cheney would be dragged out of his White House office if he were replaced. It would take months to repair the surprisingly deep scratch-marks on the walls of the West Wing. Hell, the GAO would probably estimate the damage cost to be even higher than anything of which the outgoing Clinton staffers were even accused.

It does, however, play into Bush's central campaign theme of "vote for me, because I was the one reading about goats on September 11th, 2001."

UPDATE: People have been talking about Rudy as GOP Veep as far back as 1998. From a February 1998 NY Post piece by FREDRIC U. DICKER:

LIBERAL PARTY leader Raymond Harding yesterday predicted the Republican Party would make major inroads with heavily Democratic city voters by choosing Mayor Giuliani to run for vice president in 2000.

"I think they should consider putting him on the ticket for vice president," Harding, a top Giuliani political adviser who normally steers clear of giving advice to the GOP, told The Post. "The Republicans have historically made a major omission by ignoring the urban vote throughout the nation, and Rudy might just suit the bill to address that, given his record," Harding continued.

"The mayor has an unlimited political future because of his achievements in New York City. He's a great national star," said Harding - insisting he doesn't know if Giuliani wants to run for national office.

While Giuliani himself has repeatedly refused to discuss a possible national run, political intimates and top state GOP operatives say the mayor is definitely considering such an effort.

One significant drawback of putting Giuliani on the ticket is that Bush wants to make the Culture Wars a fundamental (har har) part of his campaign strategy in '04, and Giuliani's stances on choice and gay rights kinda throw a wrench in that.

(Sure, Cheney has a lesbian daughter, and thus, has carefully-worded positions on gay rights and gay marriage. But by virtue of hypothetically being thrust into the spotlight at the '04 GOP convention, Rudy's views would be given a greater voice than Cheney, who's old news, and in his undisclosed location anyway)