Despite his absence on Twitter, former President Trump, although more discreet, is still present in the political news and you already know that several elected officials wish to obtain his support and that of his supporters in anticipation of the 2022 mid-term elections. .
While the 45th president gets his share of media coverage, hardly anyone spoke of who was his second, and moral backer, for four years. On Thursday night, Mike Pence made a noticeable comeback as he gave a speech in South Carolina.
You may recall that by the time of the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6, relations between Trump and Pence had seriously cooled. Targeted by several protesters after pressure from the president to refuse to validate the results of the 2020 election, Mike Pence was distancing himself and communications between the two men were broken.
However, when we study yesterday’s statement, we have the impression that Pence has passed the sponge, to the point where we wonder if we have not dreamed of this episode yet widely publicized. The former governor of Ohio barely made any mention of what is considered domestic terrorism. He preferred to praise the record of the presidency of the one who denigrated and humiliated him.
Admittedly, Mike Pence is not the first to suffer from memory loss for the period of January 6 or to soften the scope of this unprecedented attack. This failing or selective memory is just one more manifestation of the influence that the former president still exerts on his political formation.
I wrote earlier this week that several senators will resort to Trumpism in the hope of retaining their seats in the 2022 midterm elections. Mike Pence, who is credited with being a candidate for the 2024 presidential election, seems to have come to the same conclusion.
However, the bet of this seasoned politician seems particularly risky to me. After all, Donald Trump’s supporters have long viewed him as a foreign body, and Trump himself had very harsh words against him. One might think that Mike Pence tries less to woo them than to avoid alienating them.
After he comes out of his silence, it will be interesting to watch Mike Pence’s strategy for the next few months and two years. If we cannot exclude him automatically, he does not start favorite and his flagrant lack of charisma could constitute a serious handicap.
Before considering other candidacies, Republicans will need to ascertain the former president’s intentions. If he seems to take pleasure in behaving like a godfather whose support is essential, he would not have made his decision definitively.
Not only is Pence still in the shadow of his former boss, but Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley make sure they aren’t forgotten. I’ve been watching Nikki Haley for a while. She knew how to be faithful to Donald Trump while knowing how to distance herself when the time came.
It is the latter that I will follow more closely between now and 2024. With an experience in the post of governor and a stint at the UN, she could present as advantages the fact of being a woman and of being a woman. ‘have roots in India. Female electorate and appeal to minorities would help bring Republicans closer to clienteles who prefer Democrats to them.