Someone familiar with the effort to encourage Mike Pence to run for president comments about the news from Indiana: “Sad to say, but at a time when we need someone with guts like Reagan in 1976 challenging an incumbent president of his own party or Rubio staying in the Florida Senate race when he was 40 points down to Crist, we get political calculation, and personal ambition.”
So now what? The same person says: “Unless something miraculous happens and we get an unexpected gift candidate, I guess true believing conservatives will have to stop bad things from happening and see what emerges.”
I’d give Congressman Pence much more credit than that. He can be a good governor. Good governors are powerful. And it takes a certain humility to say no when people are enthusiastically insisting you can and should be president of the United States. I wish him well.
And it actually is a big country of talented people …. some of whom could prove to be national leaders yet!
UPDATE: Another person close to the Pence-mentum movement: “he just passed on the opportunity of a lifetime.”