Well, it looks like Roger Stone is not going to be tattooing the image of Mike Pence on his back any time soon, I think we can say that much. Stone recently disemboweled Pence in a Newsmax interview, and just roll that around your cranium for a few moments. Stone and his cohorts have have arguably been at the root of the worst Republican shenanigans in modern history. Trump is just their latest client, “they” being the unholy trio of Stone, Paul Manafort and Lee Atwater, and this goes back all the way to Nixon.
Atwater is no longer with us. He passed away from brain cancer after incredibly making a public apology for all the damage he did to the country in the service of the GOP, starting with Nixon and working through George H.W. Bush. Willie Horton was his piece de resistance. Point being, if Roger Stone has decided that you are beyond redemption, being defined here as the bag of tricks of the dirtiest of the tricksters, you are beyond hope.
In his first interview since being served with the J6 lawsuit on air, Roger Stone says he is hiring Trump’s impeachment lawyer David Schoen, and that Trump has “lost 25 pounds, he looks better than he’s ever looked his entire life. I think he’s stripping down for combat.” pic.twitter.com/SA0Hy0j6L4
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 17, 2021
Pence recently announced that his PAC intended to raise $18 Million for a 2024 run for the White House. This means, incredibly, that Pence believes that he has a shot at the nomination. That begs the question, what playbook is he relying upon to make that decision? Because yes, traditionally, former vice presidents have a tremendous advantage with name recognition and association with the administration which they were a part of. For normal veeps, it becomes a question of the former wing man now leading the squadron. The paradox here, is that nobody sees him as the former wing man, but as the enemy. It’s as if it was WWII and a squadron of Douglas Divers were up there in the sky, saving our bacon, and suddenly all the other pilots and most importantly the squadron leader, decided that the wing man was a Japanese Zero, a traitor in their midst, and started firing on him.
This is how Pence is regarded and everybody else knows it except him. How is that even remotely possible?
And it gets worse. If you can believe it, Pence thinks he has two viable options, either a presidential run himself or being on the ticket again with Trump, according to Newsweek:
“At the moment, Pence will be weighing up whether to oppose Trump or try and woo him again to be the 45th President’s running mate for 2024,” [Mark] Shanahan [political scientist] went on.
This guy is serious, this isn’t marked as parody.
“There’s a lot of ground to cover before he needs to make any decision, and first he needs to determine what direction the GOP is set to take in the run-up to 2024. Trumpism may not be as solid as it might currently seem – it was clearly rejected by the voters of California, and Donald Trump’s standing in the party could yet be destroyed by the outcomes of the January 6 Capitol insurrection Inquiry, or even if one of the many mooted lawsuits against Trump actually gets to court. Even if it’s not, the chances of Trump actually running for the presidency again are less than 50:50,” he said.
“Whatever happens, Pence will need to come out of 45’s shadow and start to offer voters a distinct manifesto: something that shows him to be other than the vanilla supplicant who offered Trump a challenge-free easy ride through an unprecedently turbulent four years in the White House. He’ll need to woo the money – and that’s why these current toe-in-the-water events matter.
So he’s got to show that he’s something other than Vanilla Spock to Trump’s Kirk on acid? That will be interesting, since being the straight man who wiped up all the spills was the entirety of Pence’s contribution for four years, until he was presented with a mop up job that was impossible, and then Trump knifed him.
“Expect Pence to keep up the campaign of being politically relevant for the next 18 months, but don’t expect him to commit to any kind of run until we tick into 2023. Being coy at the moment is an asset. He’ll keep the media interested, but keep his powder dry,” Shanahan added.
Pence has no relevance. He’s gone.
The 2024 Republican primaries may seem a distant prospect, but as Trump continues to tease his entry into the race and Pence appears to be laying the groundwork for his own run, the competition could be off to an early start.
This might be a decent textbook analysis of how these things usually go, but as with all things Trumpian, forget the norm. It doesn’t apply. That said, Pence isn’t dropping out as was anticipated, which means he’s either clueless or he’s a glutton for punishment.
The last Republican who was this out of touch was Ted Cruz, who predicted in 2016 that once Trump was out of the picture, he would lead the party in 2020. Well, Trump still isn’t out of the picture, Cruz isn’t leading the party, and Roger Stone is right. Pence isn’t going to be a viable candidate in the United States for the rest of history.
I didn’t know Pence was a viable candidate for any office, other than janitor.
He barely qualified to be trash.
Pence could be both clueless and a glutton for punishment. I would think almost being strung up by the mob on Jan. 6 would have been a wake up call, but noooo!
When you find yourself agreeing with Roger Stone… But yeah, Mannequin Mike blew any chance of getting nominated by Trump’s poodle. Hard to tell if him or Kevin McCarthy are more delusional.