Michael Pence:
"It’s become clear to me: This is not my time.”
He can cry if he wants to. But it isn't his party anymore.
Three weeks ago, at the New Hampshire Republican showcase of candidates event, the applause for Michael Pence was so tepid I felt sorry for him.
I had a familiar feeling, the one I get in hospice situations when I visit a patient to say a greeting and word of appreciation. I would be saying a "goodbye." It would be unspoken, but the patient was dying and we both knew it.
By dumb luck I got to say "goodbye" to Mike Pence. I was at my table at the rear of the "Leadership Summit" meeting room three weeks ago, engaged in conversation with a GOP activist. He noticed something behind me. I turned. There was Mike Pence, three feet from me, exchanging pleasantries with a well-wisher. I put on a warm, unthreatening smile as I waited for a break in the conversation. Pence noticed my outstretched hand and shook it. I looked him square in the face. I said, "Thank you for what you did on January 6. It was the right thing to do."
He smiled warmly, looked me square in the face and said, "God be with you." He positioned himself for this selfie.
Pence understands why he did not have political traction. Pundits who say that Pence had no "lane," miss the point. They say Pence was squeezed between the Trump loyalists, who will never forgive him, and the anti-Trump Republicans who don't trust him because he spent years giving political cover to a dangerous president. Pence understands his party has changed. There was no "Trump-Pence" administration. It was all Trump after those first few months in 2016 when Pence gave permission to Evangelicals to support a flagrant, unrepentant sinner. After some time meeting voters Pence saw his party no longer wants Christian conservatism. It wants populism and nationalism. Its members are part of a tribe and they want an angry rule-breaker who will help it win against the enemies besetting it from all sides. Party members are impatient with regulations, constraints, diplomatic protocol, and tender hurt feelings of liberal snowflakes with chips on their shoulders. It wants results. Liberal tears are a bonus.
"Larry the cable guy" understands the mood. Get stuff done. Break eggs.
Pence got left behind. His resume looks right on paper: U.S. Representative, governor of a Midwest state, and Vice President. His positions are perfectly normal: Opposing "Biden weakness," inflation, high gasoline prices, fentanyl, unregulated immigration at our southern border, crime, "out of control spending," and abortion. But he gets wrong the most important thing, the new mood and style of the GOP. In speeches Pence says, "I'm a conservative, but I am not angry about it." It draws a chuckle. He also says he is Rush Limbaugh, but on de-caf. The first statement is true. The second one is not. Limbaugh was joyfully irreverent, ironic, naughty. He loved being offensive. Pence is a choir boy, eager to do the right, very conservative, very earnest thing. That party has no longer respects or wants that. It is a kick-ass and take names party now.
Republican voters who retain affection for the grand old party of propriety and civic virtue can put away that sentimental memory and the inertia that keeps them voting Republican. The old-style Republicans that got votes a decade ago are gone. Marjorie Taylor Green calls McCain a "traitor." Trump calls the Bush presidents, Mitt Romney, and Mitch McConnell cowardly RINOs and enemies of the people. An old-style red-team player like Pence gets 2% in the polls and cannot raise money.
Congratulations on your opportunity to thank Pence for doing the right thing. I am happy that he hard you say it.
I think his doing the right thing was, in fact, a very near thing. He had to get advice from (*checks notes*) Dan "Potatoe Head" Quayle in order to do it.