Condoleezza Rice for vice president?

Before we go A-to-Z with pros and cons, let's start with why Romney's team might have floated the Condi trial balloon now.

If you were anywhere near a television this week you saw Mitt Romney getting booed at the NAACP convention for saying he would repeal Obamacare. It was running on a virtual loop all over cable news.

Then, suddenly, an exclusive report about a black woman being considered as Romney's running mate pops up on the Drudge Report.

GOP sources say Matt Drudge is the go-to guy for a top Romney aide when he wants to change a narrative about his candidate.

Now that we've gotten the "why now" out of the way, why not explore Rice the running mate. By most Republicans' accounts, at the end of this report, you will see why Rice will likely not be Romney's pick

The pros

There are many, beginning with the obvious: She is a black Republican woman, a political two-fer. And having a female on the ticket would make the influential Ann Romney happy. Mrs. Romney told CBS News earlier this month that they have been "looking at that and I love that option."

Rice has never run for office but she is no stranger to presidential politics. She was by George W. Bush's side during both of his campaigns.

She's an intellectual known for her powerhouse smarts and she has a good personal story. Rice was the only child of a black family growing up in the segregated South, whose fortitude landed her in unlikely GOP foreign policy circles.

Rice is also a bit of a Renaissance woman. She is a concert pianist with a love of football. Her real dream job is to be NFL commissioner.

The former secretary of state and national security adviser would bring some needed foreign policy chops to Romney's ticket.

The cons

She was a central Bush administration player making the public case for the Iraq war, warning about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist.

"There will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," Rice told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in September 2002.

Some GOP sources tell CNN say they can't imagine Romney would want to reopen wounds from the Bush years -- especially about what even Republicans call a mismanaged war.

Rice is also at odds with the GOP base on immigration, telling CNN's Candy Crowley not passing her boss's legislation allowing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants was one of her biggest regrets.

Last but hardly least is Rice's stance on abortion. She calls herself "mildly pro-choice."

This is the reason you can sum up social conservative reaction to the Rice trial balloon with one word: nonstarter.

Veteran conservative voice Richard Viguerie, one of the founders of the Moral Majority, said the notion of Romney picking Rice as his running mate would be a "slap in the face" to conservatives.

While Viguerie took issue with Rice's position on abortion, he said she was part of those to blame for Republican losses in 2006 and 2008 which gave rise to the "tea party rebellion of 2010."

"Putting Condoleeza Rice at the top of the VP short list is an insult to the conservatives, tea partiers and independents that are looking for a break with the old establishment Republican Washington that Rice represents," he said.

Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, a longtime friend of Romney's, bluntly told CNN that Rice's stance on abortion disqualifies her.

"I love Condi Rice, I'd love to see her in any role in Romney administration except vice president," Land told CNN in a telephone interview.

The issue, he said, isn't so much Rice -- it's Romney.