Mike Pence can offer House GOP a way out of its speakership morass
Quin Hillyer
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With House Republicans at a near-hopeless stalemate, the best choice for speaker is somebody who surely doesn’t want the job. But for the good of the party and country, the warring sides should agree to support former Vice President Mike Pence for the speakership, and Pence ought to accept.
After 11 miserably failed attempts, front-runner Kevin McCarthy should admit that, for whatever reason, he just can’t get the votes. Sometimes when one sacrifices self for politics, life stinks. He wouldn’t be the first person for whom it stinks.
MIKE PENCE WOULD BE A CANDIDATE WITHOUT A CONSTITUENCY
Nonetheless, McCarthy’s pride may not allow him to step aside in favor of one of his leadership underlings, such as the eminently qualified and talented Steve Scalise (R-LA), who is in line to be majority leader. Nor is Scalise, or someone similar, likely to do what it takes to secure the votes for the job as long as McCarthy is in the way. On a purely political level, the maneuvering would hurt them with other McCarthy loyalists, and on a personal level, the best potential contenders, such as Scalise, are not prone to disloyalty. They are too principled for that.
But the 21 rebels have offered no alternative with a reasonable chance both to secure the necessary votes and to run the fractious House effectively. As long as McCarthy stays in the race, nobody the rebels would nominate could possibly overcome the stench of looking like the pawn of what even the rebels’ colleagues think is a group of nihilists. Even if the nihilism label weren’t a fair appellation for them, the reality is that they are stuck with it in the minds of most of the public.
Hence the need, for the first time ever, to go outside the House for a speaker. For credibility’s sake, though, the person from outside the House must carry immediate weight, not to mention a demonstrated familiarity with how the House operates.
Hence, Pence.
Pence is a creature of the House. He served six full terms in the House, and he served in high leadership as chairman of the House Republican Conference. In that post, he had to negotiate among competing Republican factions just as he would need to do now, and he did it with aplomb. He knows how the House works, and he knows how House personalities operate and interact. There’s no question of his competence to do the job.
Pence also is quite conservative, with a proven record on policy easily conservative enough to satisfy the rebel caucus. Yet his reasonable and serious demeanor commands respect among all factions of the Republican Party, and his principled handling of the Capitol riot gives him a national image as a man who, when the chips are down, will do his duty. Pence commands grudging respect even from political adversaries.
The question is, if Pence is the perfect choice for speaker, why would he accept the job? Everybody knows he yearns to be president of the United States, and becoming speaker would mean giving up that quest for 2024.
Pence should look at it this way: His path to the Republican nomination is extremely difficult. Even if Donald Trump drops out, avid Trump supporters will never rally to Pence because he refused the former president’s entreaties on Jan. 6, 2021. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is seen by Republican voters as both more Trump-like in attitude and more successfully dynamic in practice than Pence is. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is more Reagan-esque in mien than the somber, unsmiling Pence. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) offer their own pizzazz.
Against all these, Pence, for all his highly admirable qualities — I began publicly pushing him for president way back in 2008! — is a hard sell as first choice for any identifiably large bloc of Republican primary voters.
As a man of duty, Pence should see that his duty is to rescue his party and country from the disaster of an utterly dysfunctional House. And as a man of realism, he should see that his dream of the presidency, like McCarthy’s dream of the speakership, may just not be destined to come true.
McCarthy, Scalise, and responsible rebel leaders such as Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) should united to ask Pence to take the speakership. For everybody’s good, Pence should agree.
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