The mainstream media has spilled more than a little bit of ink pondering the motivation for Vice President Mike Pence’s recent travels and associations.
In further proof that the liberal media thinks with one mind, WaPo’s piece quotes a NY Times piece on the same subject which speculates that Pence either believes there’s a possibility Trump won’t be around to run in 2020 or that he knows something he’s not telling anyone.
Aside from the left’s conspiracy theories, it’s an intrigue at least worth considering.
Plenty of folks on the right are also wondering aloud: could Trump decide he’s checked the box on being president and ultimately opt not to run for re-election?
It’s happened before.
Here’s more from WaPo…
Vice President Pence is spending considerable time cultivating big-money Republican donors at small, private events, including hedge fund managers and executives from brokerage houses, chemical giants and defense contractors, Kenneth P. Vogel reports at the New York Times. Many of these events, whose participants are kept secret from the media and are omitted from Pence’s public schedule, have been taking place at the vice-presidential residence at the Naval Observatory, as well as other nongovernment venues.
While cultivating support from deep-pocketed business interests is nothing new in GOP politics, Pence’s activities raise the question of whether he is doing this for Trump-Pence 2020 — or for himself. As Vogel’s piece points out, Pence’s intimate confabs with wealthy donors and conservative power brokers “have fueled speculation among Republican insiders that he is laying the foundation for his own political future, independent from Mr. Trump.”
All of this suggests something important about President Trump. Despite Pence’s protestations to the contrary, the vice president looks to be preparing for his own political future. Beyond this clear signal about his own political ambitions, Pence’s actions raise the question of whether he has lost confidence in Trump’s ability to come out of the Russia investigation unscathed.
