Condoleeza Rice is "either very worried about a socialist threat to America, or she wants to be Vice President."

Said a "Romney surrogate" about the 13-minutes speech Condi gave at a recent "closed-door fundraising retreat" for Romney in Park City. Audio of the speech at the link.

I arrived at that link via Drudge, who is pushing the Condi-for-VP story big time. Here's what Drudge looks like as I write this. Continuing with its recent black-and-white design theme, Drudge has a big photo of Condi, with a headline leading to a Drudge Report "exclusive":

Late Thursday evening, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign launched a new fundraising drive, 'Meet The VP' -- just as Romney himself has narrowed the field of candidates to a handful, sources reveal.

And a surprise name is now near the top of the list: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice!

The timing of the announcement is now set for 'coming weeks'....

It was Condi who received two standing ovations at Romney's Utah retreat a few weeks ago, and everyone left with her name on their lips.

Rice made an extended argument for American leadership in the world.

Romney could use a sidekick who will speak with gravitas about foreign policy. But does Condi know how to run for office? (She knows how to behave in the national spotlight, so she's in a better position to jump into this role than Sarah Palin was, even though Palin had run for office in Alaska.) What about the fact that Rice supports abortion rights? (Romney is going to need a lot of votes from people, like me, who support abortion rights. If we are willing to vote for him even though he opposes abortion rights, pro-lifers should be able to deal with a pro-choice VP.)

Drudge links to 3 more Condi stories, from 3 influential Republicans contemplating the prospect of Romney choosing her: Peggy Noonan, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill Kristol. 

Back to the topic of the design of the Drudge page and the mystery of the black-and-white. Right now, only black people are pictured on the page. In addition to Condi, who's giving us a very serious sidelong glance, there's Michelle Obama and Randy Jackson. Michelle has been carefully posed, it seems, by one of those portraitists who believe faces are improved by the proper arrangement of hands. Drudge tends to do things with hands, with multiple pictures and hands of different individuals matching or contrasting interestingly. But Michelle's are the only hands on the page right now. I expect more hands to accumulate on the page today.

The photo of Randy Jackson is rather nondescript and doesn't properly balance the very striking photos of the 2 women. But he's there, and they are there, and those are the only images on the page right now. We'll see what develops later. As Drudge says: "Developing...." The Drudge page is always developing. Someone should take the Drudge archive and run it as an animation using, for frames, the pages from the archive, going back as far as it goes.

For the moment, it's Condoleeza Rice, Michelle Obama, and Randy Jackson, in black-and-white, and yet I don't think Drudge means to be saying something about race — other than teasing readers (viewers?) into thinking he is.

Developing...