Nothing to Lose

Pence and DeSantis turn more aggressive on January 6.

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Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Republican Party of Iowa's 2023 Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 28, 2023. (Photo by Sergio Flores/AFP/Getty Images)

Strange but true fact about a race in which the frontrunner is 40 points ahead: Few Republican presidential candidates are panicking about the state of the primary, and for good reason.

Some are running to be vice president, others for a gig on Fox News. A few are running on a lark, because they feel compelled to make a moral case against Donald Trump on the grandest stage available. The size of Trump’s lead doesn’t matter to any of them. If he’s still 40 points ahead on New Year’s Day, it won’t matter then either.

It does matter to the two credible-ish challengers in the field, Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis.

Pence is the best-known contender in the race apart from Trump himself, an experienced public servant with impeccable Christian and conservative credentials who’s sunk so deeply into irrelevance that he trails Vivek Ramaswamy. He has yet to qualify for the first primary debate, something even Doug Burgum managed to do. 

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  1. Randall Briggs

    How can one believe either one of them? In their differing ways, they have both revealed that they will say whatever their strategerists tell them that it is necessary for them to say.

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  2. Randall Briggs

    Pence is the best-known contender in the race apart from Trump himself, an experienced public servant with impeccable Christian and conservative credentials . . .

    No. Mike Pence may have had impeccable credentials in mid-2016, but he then spent four-plus years agreeing with everything Donald Trump said or did. He had one day of glorious courage--6 Jan 2021. But then he went right back to covering for Trump, avoiding testifying before the January 6th Committee, and doing everything else that he could think of to say in the good graces of Trump and his sycophants. He won't say that Trump is a threat to the Republic, nor will he even say that he won't vote for him if he is the Republican nominee.

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    Jaylarson430

    Trumps most strident followers see him as a leader who challenges the norm in Washington. Not saying the norm does not need challenged but words alone do not promote change. It takes a level of give and take in Washington to accomplish anything. Trump just wants airtime to keep his ego inflated, not to improve conservative principles. He only cares about what makes TRUMP look better. His true followers will go over a cliff "again" with him but hopefully another candidate can prevail for the sake of this country.

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  4. Jhendrix58

    "That would be a rerun of 2016, essentially, in which figures like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio competed to consolidate conservatives in the mistaken belief that they would win a two-man race with Trump once the rest of the competition dropped out. It didn’t work for Cruz and it’s unlikely to work for DeSantis and Pence, "

    Objection! Until after Indiana it was a three-man race: John Kasich would not drop out. Kasich and Cruz divided the anti-Trump vote and, consequently, Trump kept winning by pluralities.

    Exit question: without Kasich to split the non-Trump vote would Cruz have won enough of the the primaries so as to win the GOP nomination?

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    Connie

    I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.

    I don’t know what got into Pence that he actually thought people would vote for him. The beta male is anathema to Never Trumpers, and the populists think he is a traitor. I still don’t expect him to be onstage for the first debate.

    He can bleat about how he followed the Constitution on J6, but not before he twisted himself into knots trying to find a way to do the devil’s bidding.

    I have absolutely no respect for the man at all.

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      John

      As I was reading your comment, I came across this — "The beta male is anathema to" — and I thought the next words would be "MAGA world."

      But you said "Never Trumpers."

      That confused me. Could you explain?

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        Connie

        As a Never Trumper, I always saw Pence as doing his master’s bidding. I don’t think he ever stood up to Trump in four years, not until the end, which is when MAGA-land turned on him. MAGA liked Pence when he was Trump’s lapdog.

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        1. Hallcmh

          100% agree.

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          John

          Ah. Thank you. That makes sense.

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  6. Deleted Comment

    This comment has been deleted

  7. Ken Motamed

    For the life of me, I don't understand why Pence is not preferred to Trump by evangelicals.

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      BaltoJohn

      A large part has been played by the fact that "evangelical" especially modified as "white evangelical" has evolved into the designation of an ethnic group, not any identifiable faith tradition.

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    2. Lemuel

      If one assumes sincerity in their professed beliefs, then support of Trump is a contradiction. If one rejects that assumption, that contradiction resolves.

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    3. Russell J

      A good question. The answer is probably not simple. As Russell Moore pointed out on the remnant, many self-described evangelicals aren’t that religious. Another group has connected their religious fight to the political tribe of Republicans. Some actually think Trump is like Cyrus, a pagan king used for God’s purposes. For myself, I prefer Pence to Trump but I would likely prefer other candidates, Scott, Haley, Asa. There isn’t like a pope figure telling folks who to vote for.

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      1. Bill

        As an old guy who grew up among evangelicals, I've observed that they tend to prefer the Old Testament to the New - the God of retribution instead of the God of love. Also, they are great at picking and choosing verses that justify their beliefs. As Sportin Life sings in Porgy and Bess, "I takes my gospel when ever it's pos'ble."

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        1. Korossy.Arpad

          The supposed distinction between an Old Testament "God of retribution" to a New Testament "God of love" is a false one. The revealed character of God in both is entirely consistent, and the OT is full of statements and demonstrations of God's love, forgiveness, and forbearance, just as in the NT no one talks about Hell more than Jesus Christ. The gospel is fully concerned with both justice ("retribution") and love.

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          1. Bill

            Dear Korossy an Russel J,
            I am not totally ignorant of Christian theology or of the history of the early Church. The Church Fathers labored mightily during the first two centuries after Jesus to make Jesus' ministry compatible with old testament narratives of the messiah and to solve the problem of Jesus' relationship to God. Was the Son subordinate to the Father (God) or of the same substance. The gospels themselves are not clear on this matter. The theological solution for Orthodox Christianity was the Trinity. But then there is the relationship between Christians and civil power. Most evangelicals have chosen to enter into an unholy alliance with the most despicable and unChristian man to ever occupy of office of President. All for the sake of gaining access to political power. And as Jesus is quoted in the gospel of Mark, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" It is not surprising the increasing numbers of people are turning away from organized religion.

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        2. Russell J

          I won’t get into my own critiques of which there are many. My argument would be that an evangelical is not some well-defined person who fits into a box. Yes, they have tended to vote largely in alignment but there are huge divisions within the group and there are many that take their belief seriously, especially the New Testament teachings. I mainly argue for those who get unfairly linked to the bad apples.

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    4. Iblamethedrugs

      They jumped in the pig sty and now they're stuck in the mud.

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    Kim

    “Notice, for instance, in the video above how Pence reserved his harshest language—“crackpot”—for Trump’s lawyers, not for Trump himself. Even now, two and a half years after his near-death experience, the former VP takes care not to antagonize devotees of his former boss more than he has to.”

    Don’t underestimate the implication of “itching ears” to the evangelical voters.

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    1. Russell J

      Not sure many would get the reference unless someone points it out. I had to look up the reference myself. It is a clever term.

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        Connie

        Actually, that verse is rather common for a Bible-believing Christian to know.

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    2. Poisonwood Bible

      Pence thinks he's blowing a clever dog whistle and only voters inclined to him can hear it. It's clever in that sense, but he's going to enrage most of the people who understand what he's saying. They're not going to take the rebuke.

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    3. Jaybrown

      He didn't have a "near death experience." Not even close.

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      1. Paul in NC

        No need to try to rewrite history. If that mob of enraged MAGA cultists got their hands on Pence, they would have torn him apart. That's a fact.

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          Pbanuski

          Not a fact, a supposition. Perhaps a very credible one! I give it a lot of credence.

          But it's not a fact.

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          1. Paul in NC

            So the violent mob screaming "Hang Mike Pence!" wasn't going to hurt the Vice President? That's laughably delusional.

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    Pence is hoping to woo the evangelical voters in Iowa (a pretty good sized crowd), hoping to bruise Trump by winning an early state. Its not a bad strategy. It's a long shot, but it is viable.

    The scary thing is that for years, I've said what DeSantis is saying--the 2020 election outcomes are correct (Biden won), but the rules favored Dems who pounced (sorry, Dems can pounce too!) on the rule changes. If Republicans go aggressive on mail-ins in 2024, they have a real shot at winning. Unless they nominate Trump. He's really (besides Vivek) the only one who can lose to Joe Biden.

    Other than Trump, and assuming the Dem is Biden, I'm on team Nikki now, but will support Pence, Scott, DeSantis if they get the nomination. Don't know much about Burgham, maybe him, meh on Christie and Asa. Did I forget anyone?

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    1. Jarena

      I was able to come up with Will Hurd without cheating...

      ...I had to cheat to get Francis Suarez.

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      Patrickhancy

      Will Hurd, the real "Too Honest" man

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        Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

        Oh yeah, I’ve Hurd of Will.

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    3. Russell J

      Suarez. Most forgot him.

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    4. Ken Motamed

      How did the 2020 election rules favor Democrats?

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        Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

        Democrats went heavy after after mail in, seeing a benefit republicans didn’t. It’s why I s as I’d they pounced.

        Legal. They also pushed for the rule changes, Republicans didn’t understand why early enough.

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      2. Ufodaddy

        Yeah, I don't understand this either. They applied to everyone.

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        Stephanie

        The 2020 election rules favored anyone who didn't buy the nonsense Trump was peddling about mail ballots = election fraud.

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  10. Billy Zammit

    I knew that this was gonna happen. Nick simped for months for DeSantis's strategy of pretending to be MAGA. I think he was actually defending it as recently as last *week*. But now that DeSantis has finally thrown in the towel on that, Nick is saying that it's smart, which, of course, it wasn't. In politics, if you just do the opposite of what Nick recommends you will probably be in good shape.

    Really, it's neither smart nor dumb. DeSantis's Kamala tier campaign ends after the first debate when he's exposed as the autistic, dough boy, midget that he is regardless. This attempted pivot by DeSantis is nothing other than a mark of total desperation and will fail as badly as everything else that DeSantis has tried so far in this campaign.

    "Polls continue to show that Trump is viewed less favorably by GOP voters now than he used to be"

    Of course Nick cites the completely meaningless favorability polls and ignores the horserace polls which show Trump *increasing* his lead in the primaries over the last two weeks. It wouldn't be a Nick column without some blatant misrepresentation of the data.

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    1. Paul in NC

      Here's the MAGA cultist to tell us why the twice-impeached, thrice-indicted, coup-plotting moron is going to con the rest of the electorate the same way he was conned.

      You're in a cult, champ. You should probably deal with that.

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    2. LMcGrath

      Why bother reading him then?

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      1. Billy Zammit

        As long as Nick writes, I am obligated to both read and respond to him

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        1. LMcGrath

          Sad that you don’t have anything better to do than be a reply guy.

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          1. Billy Zammit

            I'm very well compensated for my work

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