Before Sen. John McCain selected Aslaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, he had previously wanted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to fill the role.

Page One Q reports that a mid-level member of the Republican National Committee said that McCain and his advisors leaned toward Rice after Democratic nominee Barack Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate.

“[T]hey had this theory that Condi was the perfect candidate to put up against him,” the source said. “She’s tough, conservative and a hawk, not to mention a football fanatic, which would be more than enough for white men.”

Page One Q reports:

McCain’s inner circle argued “furiously” for Rice to be his running mate instead of one-time top contenders Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Tim Pawlenty. However, according to the RNC source, persistent rumors about Rice’s sexual orientation took her out of the running. “In Washington circles,” the source said, “it’s just assumed Rice is gay and nobody really cares. But in the glare of the media spotlight, those rumors were bound to get magnified a thousandfold and the mainstream media would have had an excuse to reveal the facts that would have caused conniption fits among the Republican base.”

Rice, as Provost of Stanford University long before she was on the Bush cabinet, jointly owned a California house and held a line of credit with documentary filmmaker Randy Bean, with whom Rice has said she bonded over a “mutual love of football.”

“Whether or not her relationship with Bean means Condi is light in the loafers is not the point,” the source added. “It’s hard to prove one way or another. The fact is that by the time the media finished dissecting it, not a Christian conservative in the country would have gone to the polls in November and that’s ultimately what nixed the Rice candidacy.”