I didn’t realize it was Mike Pence’s job to save the GOP. Pence pick for VP was a stability pick, just like Biden was for Obama. The Party felt safe having a professional player behind the amateur – PB/TK
Mike Pence Can’t Save the GOP – By Jamelle Bouie / May 22 2017
The odds of Donald Trump leaving office before the end of his term are still incredibly low. But that hasn’t stopped some Republicans from thinking about—and perhaps pining for—Vice President Mike Pence to replace him, and urging their compatriots to think similarly. “Republicans who are reflexing defending the self-inflicted wounds of this President have no need for him with Mike Pence in the wings,” wrote conservative pundit Erick Erickson, urging Republicans to either intervene with Trump or push for his ouster. Likewise, in a piece calling for the 25th Amendment option—removing Trump from office as too incapacitated to perform his duties—conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argued this move would leave conservative governance in place, i.e., Republicans would still have Pence.
Politico quotes anonymous Republican lawmakers, aides, and lobbyists who all voice a preference for Pence over Trump. They see him as skilled, knowledgeable, and free from the “drama” of the present administration. As for Pence himself, while he’s been quiet the past two weeks—as the White House grapples with its latest scandals—he hasn’t been idle. This week, the vice president took the unusual step of launching a political action committee, called the Great America Committee, which will raise money for Republican congressional candidates. This is precisely what an ambitious politician might do if he were looking to the future, while it is also somewhat unprecedented for vice presidents.
Implicit in this chatter is the idea that Pence is untouched by the scandals of the Trump administration, and that he could float free of the recrimination and division that would come in the wake of resignation or removal. But this is a delusion. Not just because Pence has been a key enabler of the president—lending his stature to Trump when he was a newly minted nominee, defending his worst transgressions during the campaign, denying reality on the president’s behalf, etc.—but because Pence, an influential figure in the administration, is potentially implicated in its misdeeds.
Continue to slate.com article: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/05/mike_pence_can_t_save_the_gop.html
