Posted on 05/08/2014 6:49:25 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I’m old enough to remember when people thought the GOP had a strong field lined up for the next cycle, with no need for dark horses. Which is to say, I’m more than six months old.
Mike Pence is also quietly cultivating influential Washington figures such as Bill Kristol and Gary Bauer, while becoming one of the loudest voices attacking Common Core, a set of education benchmarks that has sparked a revolt among tea party activists.
The moves all bear the hallmarks of a potential run for president in 2016 — and some Republican leaders have begun talking up Pence as an under-the-radar standard-bearer who could return the GOP to the White House, according to interviews with more than two dozen prominent Republicans. They say the talk-radio-host-turned-congressman-turned-governor has the capacity to electrify grass-roots voters while uniting the constituencies that make up today’s deeply divided Republican Party.
“Pence could bridge really every group — the social conservatives, the fiscal conservatives, the foreign policy conservatives,” said Chris Chocola, president of the Club for Growth and a friend of Pence’s. “He’s not viewed as a fringe guy.”…
“In the last few months, people have reached out,” Pence said. “I’m listening.”
Actually, the money quote from the article isn’t in that excerpt. It’s this one, from Pence himself: “I am someone who doesn’t believe there is something wrong with the Republican agenda.” That’s an … interesting message to run on as the potential nominee of a party that’s been shellacked two elections in a row and, with great fanfare, engaged in a formal rebranding after the 2012 campaign. The most dynamic Republican pols of the last year are all about changing the party’s agenda. Most obviously, Rand Paul’s been pushing NSA reform and sentencing reforms; less conspicuously, Mike Lee’s proposed several pro-family economic measures. Virtually everyone in the prospective presidential field supports some form of immigration reform. It’d be supremely ironic if, after the rise of the tea party and people like Paul and Lee tugging the GOP in many different new directions, we ended up with a nominee who’s running explicitly on the idea of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
If you missed it last month, here’s my earlier post on Pence’s candidacy. The smartest critique of him in the WaPo story comes from Grover Norquist, who wonders what Pence’s “big thing” is. Scott Walker’s “big thing” is beating the unions in Wisconsin; if Pence ends up competing with him to be the “compromise candidate,” who’s respected by both the establishment and the grassroots, what has he accomplished to warrant picking him over Walker? (The same can be said for Rubio and Jindal, both of whom may also end up jockeying for the “compromise candidate” slot.) Pence has gotten out in front of opposing Common Core, but people who follow that issue closely like the boss emeritus think his opposition is mostly cosmetic. Maybe Pence’s “big thing” is simply the fact that he’s an exceptionally safe choice, almost to the point of blandness. Everyone else in the field has liabilities that will annoy some Republicans; even Walker, I think, might run into trouble on immigration. But Pence is, famously, a “full-spectrum conservative.”
The fact that he’s saying outright that he thinks there’s nothing wrong with the GOP’s agenda might be reassuring to undecided voters faced with hard choices in the primaries between hawks and doves, social moderates and social conservatives, and so forth. I think McCain got nominated in 2008 because GOP voters ultimately decided he was the safest choice; Romney was also the safest in 2012. Maybe all he has to do is jump in, keep his head down while the rest of the field nukes each other, and then accept the nomination when voters decide it’s all too much and they should just stick with the inoffensive conservative guy from the midwest.
Conservative on the outside, RINO on the inside.....
An Oreo cookie of sorts?
WaPo
THE PERFECT TICKET.....
I vaguely recall him in the news a few years ago...
Walker/Pence 2016......a winning ticket. If Palin wants in that is fine too. But 100 percent NO to Cruz and Paul. They would be the biggest disaster.....can you imagine a first term Senator (2 years in for Cruz) going up against Hillary. She would eat him for lunch due to his inexperience. He is 43 (this year).....he can run in 2034.
THE PERFECT TICKET.....
You want to lose don’t you. Cruz is too inexperienced....First term Senator...remember? Do you want another Obama?????? No results!
I love Mike Pence. He would make a great president. He cannot win.
He won in Indiana in the year Obama won re-election. He’s the guy the GOP should have nominated for President but didn’t.
Pence is an acceptable safe choice for those who can’t stomach Jeb Bush. And he comes from a solid GOP state.
Pence, a RINO?
It’s about time the Pubs figured out the ‘Rat strategery for running a relative unknown without much of a record. The hard part is getting ‘em elected in a 60% Progressive populace that couldn’t be shamed into doing the decent thing if their life depended on it which it may.
Pence is a good man. Would be an excellent low key administrator !
Good at seeing overall picture and cleaning up messes. He has legislative experience and has served as governor. Very qualified
I believe that 95 percent of Republicans elected or running for office are either repudiating conservatism or faking it.
A few like Cruz, Palin or even Rand Paul stand for something as examples.
Only three of the 40 plus GOP senators (Cruz, Paul, Lee) seem to stand for anything.
Can’t use the liberal media mantra on me anymore, I know they’re liberal and its too bad but most Republican elected officials are liberal as well. A lot hide their liberalism better than others.
THIS PENCE GUY IS ANOTHER FAKER VOTE SPLITTER DESIGNED TO HELP JEB OR MITT OR WHOEVER THE ESTABLISHMENT WANTS TO WIN DEFEAT CONSERVATIVES IN THE PRIMARIES-CAUCUSES.
I WILL SUPPORT SARAH PALIN, TED CRUZ OR RAND PAUL FOR PRESIDENT, OTHERWISE DON’T BOTHER TO HUSTLE ME WITH ANOTHER CANDIDATE.
Your last line was all you needed to say.
The business as usual candidates are not getting my support although the country may be in such ruins they will win without my vote in the general election.
Mike is a conservative and he understands economics. I would be fine with that. I’d rather have Cruz—but Pence might actually be more effective given his executive experience.
Yeah, Pence isn’t a RINO. He was a talk radio personality in Indiana so I know that he’s a solid conservative. But it worries me that somewhere there are thousands of hours of recordings. I lived through the Mourdock meltdown so I’m just a little leery.
“Scott Walker is the dark horse. There is a black out because they know he is formidable.”
Yep.
He is left out of many polls.
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