(Dobbs) Better Late Than Never, Mike Pence
Pence will not endorse, or even vote for, Donald Trump.
There is no forgiving Mike Pence.
For four years he was Donald Trump’s toady. But right now, I’d like to give the man a hug.
He just told Fox News, “I cannot in good conscience” endorse Trump this time, and won’t even vote for him.
Of course he stood obsequiously by Trump for those four years— well, three years and 351 days, until Trump wanted his vice president on January 6th, two weeks before their terms were up, to reject several states’ electoral votes cast for Joe Biden and give the states a chance to choose new electors. Believing the Constitution did not allow him to do that, Pence refused. For maybe the first time since his inauguration four years earlier, Pence did the right thing.
Now he’s done it again.
Not that it will make a big difference. It almost definitely won’t. The guy is a has-been, and as the primaries proved— he already was out of the running last year in October— he has no base. But I liken political statements— even non-endorsements like this one— to toothpaste ads. If a toothpaste brand puts its ad on TV once and says, “We’re better than all the others,” no one is persuaded to try it. But when people see the ad day after day, the message begins to sink in and some will give it a chance. In this case, particularly with the independents and undecideds on whom the November election might hang, Pence’s repudiation of the man who made him Vice President, on top of all the other once-loyal Republicans who have forsaken Trump, might be one of the straws that breaks the camel’s back.
They always were the odd couple. On the up side, Pence’s morals are 180-degrees the opposite of Donald Trump’s. Pence would never mock people with disabilities, he would never trash soldiers who were caught and held as POWs, and unless he had a secret side that no one got to see, he would never have an affair with a porn star. Donald Trump did all that and more.
On the down side, until that tragic day of January 6th, he stood by his patron, steadfast if sometimes poker-faced, every time they appeared in the same room or on the same platform. He never stood up to the idiocy, the indecency, the lies of the president he served.
However, as Pence proved to his credit on January 6th, he also would never try to overturn a fair and legal election.
Of course Trump found a way to blame Pence for the insurrection of January 6th. “Had he sent the votes back to the legislatures, they wouldn’t have had a problem with January 6th,” he professed without regard for the law, “so in many ways you can blame him for January 6.” Only Donald Trump could corrupt the facts like that.
But while Pence didn’t say so when he delivered his stunner on Fox News, those words by the ex-president probably weren’t what turned the tide. Rather, it likely was Trump’s tweet on January 6th while the chaos was widening that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” And on top of that, the credible claim in former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s book that as Trump sat in the White House dining room watching the rioters in the Capitol scream “Hang Mike Pence”— and never lifted a finger to stop it— he vengefully voiced the word “hang” himself.
What Pence did say on Fox News was this: “Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years. That’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.” Pence said he sees Trump “walking away from our commitment to confronting the national debt,” reversing himself “on getting tough on China,” and abandoning “a commitment to the sanctity of human life.” Of course although Trump shifts with the wind, essentially if he isn’t true to Pence’s definition of a conservative agenda today, he never was. The reasons Pence should have given when he said he won’t back him is, Trump is anti-democratic, Trump is a disgrace, and Trump is dangerous.
Three months after the insurrection, Pence launched a new foundation: “Advancing American Freedom.” What he said at the time was, “Advancing American Freedom plans to build on the success of the last four years by promoting traditional Conservative values and promoting the successful policies of the Trump Administration.”
By that measure, Mike Pence didn’t learn a thing. Now, three years later, he purports to see the light. He did the nation no favors for the years he stood by Trump, but in the context of better-late-than-never, I’ll give him one star on his report card. Every voice that speaks out against Donald Trump— whether for his perilous policies or his unprincipled persona— is a voice worth praising.
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Couldn’t agree more. I hope all of this does lead to a tipping point.
So well said. Thanks Greg