Back in May, when it was obvious Mike Pence would get into the presidential race, I wrote a piece asking him to soberly consider his prospects and then evaluated them rather pitilessly myself. (I am told it did not please his communications team.) I wrote then that anyone who sought to run against Trump by relitigating January 6 was doomed to failure, and that Pence — because of his pivotal role that day — was the one candidate who literally could not avoid making it a centerpiece of his campaign. This was before Trump had been subjected to his serial battery of indictments, which had the predictably similar effect of solidifying his base support and blotting out coverage of the Republican primary nearly altogether. (There’s another debate coming in nine days — bet you forgot.)
I asked Pence then to be honest with himself about his reasons for getting into this election. My hope was that, knowing the matter of January 6 could not be avoided, he would at least grasp the nettle directly and manfully, and take credit for doing the right thing. Pence, despite his long career in politics, remains mostly a cipher to the American public, his legislative and gubernatorial career having been subsumed by his most recent role as Trump’s vice president. So the question remained open: What kind of man would he prove to be, really?
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