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.
Walker/Pence if we want to win.....we need grown ups with experience this time.
You said the EXACT same thing about your last “hero” Lazio and of course you made it seem like he was a sure bet and of course “she ate his lunch” so your opinion has not been great.
Yes she was but if you think the United States is going for another On The Job training President you are crazy.
I seem to remember people saying the same thing about the last first term Senator to run against Hillary for President...
Unfortunately you have such a problem with reading that it is impossible to dab ate you. no wonder you are for such a novice. If you want to lose in 2016, pick Cruz. I am for Walker/Pence...the adults in the room. Cruz is such a talker that I can’t even begin to think why you believe he deserves the Presidency....he has accomplished ZERO!
Fool me once, fool me twice......you are going to ruin the United States if we don’t pick an experience President this time around. Walker is the guy. Of course you guys always pick the losers. Didn’t you guys support that Brennon guy in North Carolina....what did that do? Nothing. You cannot pick winners no matter what you do. I guess you want to continue the trend.
I’m all in.
Are you kidding me and everyone on this website? Cruz would mop the floor with her.Experience? What the hell did she have?A joke of a term as secstate and carpet bagger senator of new York?What a laugh.Remember hillarycare?Sounds a lot like ole barrycare.Thats an anvil around every demorats neck and you should know that.
One is a conservative and the other is a redistributionist commie.Sure, no difference at all there.WOW...
He's had a lot of accomplishments, he's a polished debater, he eats the MSM for lunch, and he has a reliable conservative background.
He believes in American excellence, wants to reestablish all that entails, plus he's clearly thoughtful, clearly capable of delegating and getting advice from conservative heavyweights.
It's not just inexperience that defines Barky, it's his background, his total lack of accomplishment in anything in his life along with his Marxist/muzzie beliefs that makes him so evil.
Cruz is going to be formidable, along with several others, so get used to it and stop being so ignorant please.
Obama’s lack of experience is not the reason he is a disastrous president. It’s because he’s an anti-American leftist.
There will not be an election in 24.
Thank you for sharing that.
..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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzb9Hs2SmfQ
Frankly, I think Cruz can out-Reagan even Reagan. And he can outsmart ANYONE in Washington DC of either party.
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RE: Buchanan liked Pence a while back. But when I looked into him, he was squishy on immigration.
Then I highly doubt you’ll like ANY possible GOP candidate on immigration (Yep, and that includes Ted Cruz ).
You sound like someone with a secret infatuation with Hillary.
You sound like someone with a secret infatuation with Hillary.
You are just too smart for your own good.
Oh, I don't know about that - I am from the very hard right, and very anti-GOP since 07...
The ones I am supposed to be all excited by won't get my vote.
But I will vote for Pence, without a doubt.
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