According to many on the right yes.
An equally asinine notion there as well. Much like Condi's gender and ethnicity is a
potential advantage, so to was Barack's ethnicity. However, the push of Obama as President was not "pandering" to the black vote, in part because...frankly...voting "blocks" such as those don't actually share such a common thought process that there's any singular individual that is going to largely sway a significant amount of undecided or people that go the other way to your side.
That's part of the nature that makes suggesting its a ploy doesn't really work. Women already don't vote in some monolithic group, and do it far less so than even Blacks at this point. Either side nominating a woman as a "ploy" to get woman voters is essentially stupid as such a thing is undoubtably not going to work. However, it's entirely reasonable and in line with...well...EVERYTHING political campaigns do...to factor in the political strategy of how it can affect things. While there may have been people who voted for Barack Obama's ticket literally JUST because he was black, and there may've been some who voted for McCain's ticket literally JUST because Palin was a female, the reality is few people really vote for such singular issues. Even in the cases where they're voting becuase "he's black" or "she's a woman", often its not even the sex and gender itself but rather the assumption that someone with that similarity to you may better understand your views or fight for your views due to that connectoin...same thing why non-Christians have a hard time doing well in these kind of things, just kind of in the opposite.
So to call it a "ploy" I think is incorrect and even more degrading to Rice, as it suggests that somehow the vast amount of factors that play into the political reasons for her choice and the practical reason for why she's a good choice are irrelevant or somehow secondary to the fact that "HEY! SHE HAS BOOBIES!". Claiming her selectoin is simply a "ploy" to get women's voters wittles her down to nothing but a puppet, acting like her plethora of accomplishments both in government, education, and the private sector are non-existant and the only reason she could possibly be selected is because of what's between her legs.
To me, it seems either insulting and belittling to her, suggesting there's no other reaosn why she'd possibly be chosen...OR...it's insulting and condescending to conservatives at large suggesting that there's no reason why they would choose a woman to be VP, regardless of her qualifications, save to act as a "ploy" for the women's vote.
Rice's sterling amount of experience internationally, and specifically with regards to intelligence and defense related foreign policy, is something I imagine would be viewed by a political campaign as a
far more valuable asset political than her gender, or her ethnicity.
