Pence could be a different kind of candidate if freed from a Trump ticket
Vice President Mike Pence speaks to Caterpillar employees, in Green Valley, Ariz., on Thursday. Credit: AP / Arizona Daily Star / Kelly Presnell
Imagine if the unexpected occurs and the key moment at next year's Republican National Convention becomes the acceptance speech of Mike Pence — for the presidential nomination.
Whatever the circumstances, whomever he faces, the current vice president could pursue a candidacy he was said to consider before President Donald Trump made him his 2016 running mate.
Genuine conservatives might just love him for the top spot.
He's anti-abortion and fiscally cautious. He surely would continue the rightward trend of federal judicial appointments. He'd push the tax-cut policies and industry deregulation policies supported by Republican legislators.
The Trump foreign policy stances might change or become clearer under Pence than they have been for three years, perhaps closer to what the Senate GOP caucus prefers.
The use of Twitter and the golf and junk-food habits might be gone.
Most probably the tantrums, public obscenities, preening, business conflicts and sexual-harassment charges against the incumbent would be quickly forgotten. Of course, the campaign might be less fun depending on your point of view.
Not that Democrats wouldn't quickly find plenty to attack — fiscally, morally or philosophically — in Pence's record and approach. But the American election might lack the recently-imported flavor of an intramural struggle in the Duma.
Pence sounds like what he is — a 12-year congressman and four-year Indiana governor. Also, he keeps a Bible verse above his mantle, Jeremiah 29:11.
”For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
He was Catholic and a Democrat earlier in his life, but in college, became an evangelical born-again Christian inspired by GOP President Ronald Reagan.
His older brother Greg won an Indiana congressional seat this year.
These are things to know and consider if and when the time comes.
For now, Pence plays the scrupulously loyal lieutenant. After Trump last week took the loopy step of asking China to investigate his potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden for corruption, Pence said Trump was fulfilling a vow to “drain the swamp.”
As for Biden's son, Hunter, having worked for a Ukraine gas company, Pence said it was “worth looking into," adding: “The president made it very clear that he believes our other nations around the world should look into it as well."
Pence did not, at least on this occasion, step out Trump-style on the wobbly limb of a conspiracy theory; he just dutifully touted the company line.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
