A recent report in The Wall Street Journal was headlined "Mike Pence’s Starring Role in Trump Indictment Is Sore Subject for 2024 GOP Voters." It indicated that "Backers of the former president have never forgiven Pence, while anti-Trump Republicans still blame the former vice president for being a supplicant the previous four years."
This is hardly auspicious for Mr. Pence's attempt to get the party's 2024 presidential nomination.
Mr. Pence is hardly my ideal candidate, since his stance on several important issues is the opposite of my own. And I am not likely to be voting for any Republicans in the near future, given the cagey behavior of many of the party's leaders in the face of alleged transgressions of the former president.
However, I think that Pence might not be a terrible president and that he might be the best possible Republican nominee, assuming that the party won't nominate Liz Cheney, John Kasich or Chris Christie.
Many of Pence's idiosyncratic stances on issues would have no chance of being supported by Congress, and his record suggests that he would not be inclined to exceed the powers given to presidents by the Constitution.
For Democrats and independents, a decision whether to vote for Pence in the general election therefore might hinge on their conclusions about his motives for agreeing to run with Donald Trump in 2016 and his behavior as vice president during most of Mr. Trump's time in office.
It is hard to believe that Pence felt that Trump was a good man, given Pence's straight-laced moral attitudes and Trump's alleged playboy-like behavior. So why did he agree to be Trump's running mate? There are several possible reasons.
It is well known that Pence had long had his eyes on getting into the White House, going back at least to his days as an undergraduate at Hanover College. A significant number of vice presidents have inherited the presidency upon the death or resignation of the nation's leader.
And with Trump, an older, arguably obese man inclined to an unhealthy diet, odds of such a succession would have looked more favorable.
And even if Trump survived his term in office, a former vice president could be in a better than average position to get nominated as his successor.
So Pence's agreement to run with Trump might have been simply a self-interested career move.
On the other hand, Pence might have felt that his greater political experience (as a member of Congress and governor of Indiana) would allow him to help keep a president Trump from doing something that was really imprudent or dangerous to the national welfare. If this were the case, Pence might have been willing to risk damaging his own reputation by agreeing to be the running mate.
Surely Pence was familiar with the old saying that when you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. But if his motive for joining with Trump was a public spirited one, voters might be willing to forgive him or even commend his action.
Pence's unceasing support for Trump during nearly all of his presidency was only the normal expected behavior of a vice president, and voters should not hold this against him. True, he did seem to overdo it sometimes.
Whatever Pence's actual motive for accepting Trump's invitation, we can all be thankful that he did so. If Trump had picked a different running mate, that person might have gone along with the efforts to remain in the White House even after losing the 2020 elections.
Pence saved the country from a coup d'etat, and for this alone he will go down in history as an honorable man. Whether this honorableness will be recognized and rewarded by future voters remains to be seen.
Paul F. deLespinasse is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Computer Science at Adrian College. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1966, and has been a National Merit Scholar, an NDEA Fellow, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and a Fellow in Law and Political Science at the Harvard Law School. His college textbook, "Thinking About Politics: American Government in Associational Perspective," was published in 1981 and his most recent book is "The Case of the Racist Choir Conductor: Struggling With America's Original Sin." His columns have appeared in newspapers in Michigan, Oregon, and a number of other states. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.