Tag Archives: Mike Pence

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Let’s flip these national tickets

kaine-pence-jpg

In 1988, a Texan was running for vice president on the Democratic ticket led by Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.

The Texan was U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen. The buzz in the Lone Star State was that many Texans wanted Bentsen to be the top man. They much preferred him to Dukakis. There was some of that feeling around the country, too, especially given Bentsen’s performance at the VP debate with then Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana.

“Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” became one of the signature moments of that campaign as Bentsen skewered Quayle for comparing his Senate experience with what JFK brought to the 1960 presidential campaign.

Well, tonight two more No. 2s are going to square off.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia will joust with Republican Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana. They are their parties’ nominees for vice president.

They’re going to make the top-tier candidates — Donald J. Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton — the issue tonight.

I wouldn’t be surprised in the least that we are going to hear a lot of lamenting when it’s all over from those who wish that Sen. Kaine and Gov. Pence were leading their respective tickets in 2016

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Pence breaks with Trump on Obama’s birth

FILE - In this Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015 file photo, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence announces that the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services has approved the state's waiver request for the plan his administration calls HIP 2.0, during a speech in Indianapolis. Pence said Wednesday that he regrets the "confusion" caused by a memo about a planned state-run news website and will scrap the project if it doesn't "respect the role of a free and independent press." (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

 

The Republican Party’s presidential ticket has at least one voice of reason, and it’s not the man at the top of the ticket.

No. The reasonable, sane voice comes from the vice presidential nominee, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who has broken with presidential nominee Donald Trump on the most outrageous element of his campaign for the White House: that Barack Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii, one of the nation’s 50 states.

Pence said he accepts that President Obama is duly qualified to hold his office, that he isn’t a foreign-born imposter that Trump has alleged for longer than Obama has been president.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/pence-trump-obama-birther-comments-2278404

So, there you have it. Pence is on board. Will his running mate — the goofball reality TV celebrity/real estate mogul/politician buy in?

I don’t really care. Trump’s assertion of President Obama constitutional illegitimacy is laughable on its face.

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Gov. Pence takes the lead on tax returns

tax-return-form

This just in: Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is going to release his tax returns.

Meanwhile, the guy who heads the Republican Party’s presidential ticket, Donald J. Trump, continues to keep his tax returns away from public scrutiny.

Pence is running alongside Trump for the White House.

He told “Meet the Press” in remarks to be broadcast Sunday that he’s going to turn his tax returns loose for the public to inspect.

Oh, and what about Trump? “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd asked Pence. Trump will do so eventually, as soon as the Internal Revenue Service completes its audit.

Hold the phone, dude!

An IRS audit doesn’t preclude release of tax returns.

Once again, I shall state that Trump is refusing to do something that’s been customary for presidential candidates since 1976. No, there’s no law requiring release of the returns. It’s just been a bipartisan tradition that has its roots in the immediate post-Watergate era.

In 1976, Republican President Gerald Ford and Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter agreed to release their returns in reaction to the constitutional scandal that took down a president and sent others to prison.

I’m glad to see Gov. Pence doing the right thing.

Now …

How about the guy at the top of his ticket?

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POTUS set to tour Louisiana flood zone

louisiana-floods

Well, here you go.

President Obama has said he’s going to Louisiana next week to see first hand the damage caused by the historic flood.

I’m glad to know he’s going to size it up in person.

Yes, I wrote that he should go. Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, made a show of it today by venturing to the flood zone. They went despite being asked to stay away by Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards.

It’s interesting to me that candidates can do nothing to help. They do manage to score some political points, which Trump sought to do.

Presidents, though, do bring loads of gravitas to such visits.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/obama-louisiana-flooding-visit-227209

For that reason, I’m glad Barack Obama is going to fulfill an unwritten but always understood job requirement. It is to be the comforter in chief. Obama is good at it.

Lord knows he’s had enough experience embracing grieving Americans caught in the midst of crisis.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/08/president-ought-to-take-a-look-at-the-flood-damage/

 

 

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Pence pledges to release tax returns … and Trump?

tax-return-form

Mike Pence isn’t exactly “going rogue,” to borrow a phrase coined eight years ago by another candidate for vice president, former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

But the Indiana governor — and the Republicans’ nominee for vice president — is saying something his running mate isn’t saying.

He plans to release his personal tax returns before Election Day.

It’s a departure — and a welcomed one at that — from the refusal by GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump to release his tax returns.

Pence assures us it will be a quick read once they returns become known. I believe him.

Trump’s returns — which also should be released for public review — seem to present some issues for the GOP presidential nominee.

Is Trump as rich as he boasts? Has he given anything to charity? Has he paid his “fair share” of income tax, or any at all?

I welcome Gov. Pence’s decision to release his returns.

I do not, though, expect Gov. Pence to talk his running mate into following suit.

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Tax returns, Mr. Trump … tax returns

hillary

Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Democratic running mate, Tim Kaine, have released their tax returns.

Now it’s time for Donald Trump and his running Republican running mate, MIke Pence, to do the same.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/clinton-releases-2015-tax-return-prods-trump-to-do-the-same/ar-BBvyxbS?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

This issue will not go away. Nor should it as long as Trump continues to hide behind some kind of phony excuse about the Internal Revenue Service audit.

IRS officials say an audit doesn’t prevent someone from releasing returns to the public.

Here’s an interesting twist to the Trump refusal to do what other presidential candidates have been doing since 1976: it’s that he has been insisting that President Obama release his academic records at Harvard; he bitched about the president’s birth, insisting that he release his birth certificate to prove he actually was born in the United States.

Now, with the focus on his own tax returns — and his continuing boasts about how rich and successful he has been — Trump refuses to let us all in on what should be public knowledge.

How much is he really worth? How much has he given to charity? How much does he pay in taxes? What is the nature of his foreign investments?

We’ve seen Hillary Clinton’s returns. She and her husband made a lot of money this past year. They also paid a significant portion in taxes. They gave to charity, although most of that charitable giving went to their foundation.

It’s your turn, Donald Trump.

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Trump steps in it … again

BBvrUog

Donald J. Trump has shown a remarkable ability to say things that those who hear them can interpret in ways that he may not have intended.

He did it again today at a North Carolina campaign rally.

The Republican presidential nominee fired up his crowd by declaring that Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton “essentially” intends to dismantle the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

He said: “By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Though the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pence-defends-trump-he-was-rallying-gun-owners-to-vote/ar-BBvrMFw?li=BBnb7Kz

Unlike many folks who blog or pontificate on politics, I am not a mind-reader. Therefore, I am not going to presume what Trump meant to say.

Some suggest he meant that “Second Amendment people” could do serious harm to Clinton if she appoints judges to the federal judiciary who will gut gun owners’ rights.

Others, such as GOP vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence, said that he meant only to encourage those “Second Amendment people” to vote for president this fall.

Hmmm.

Trump, to no one’s surprise, hasn’t yet clarified his own remarks. He has chosen, I suppose, to leave it to others to parse his statement.

There is a pattern here. Trump says things with little appreciation for the consequences of what he utters.

It’s interesting to me that at the moment he spoke about the “Second Amendment people,” he never offered any detail, such as, oh: “There’s nothing you can do, folks, although the Second Amendment people can be sure to get out and vote for me, because I will protect the rights of gun owners.”

He didn’t do that.

Now we’re left to wonder what this guy actually means.

Mr. Trump, allow me to be among the many who’ve warned you already: Words have consequences.

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To endorse or not endorse …

trumpryan

Let me see if I can keep this straight.

Republican Party presidential nominee Donald J. Trump said just the other day he wasn’t ready to “endorse” House Speaker Paul Ryan in his bid for re-election. He also declined to endorse U.S. Sen. John McCain, who’s also in a tough fight for re-election. Same for U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte.

Then he went to Green Bay, Wis., yesterday and endorsed all three of them.

Ryan, McCain and Ayotte all have kept their distance from their party’s presidential nominee. They dislike many of his public statements about immigration, his proposed ban on Muslims and, oh, a lot of other things.

I’m wondering about the impact of these endorsements and whether it means that the individuals who got them from Trump — Ryan, McCain and Ayotte — now will make campaign appearances with him.

I’m guessing that Ryan won’t. Why? Well, his major challenge is coming from within his own party; he’s being challenged by a TEA Party insurgent who — interestingly, in my view — has drawn the endorsement from former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Ryan’s primary election is next week, if he dispatches the TEA Party fellow, then he’ll likely win re-election this fall.

But all three of these lawmakers have said some unkind things about their party’s presidential nominee. They are far from alone, particularly in the wake of the Democratic Party convention, during which Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has scored a significant post-convention “bounce” in many public opinion surveys.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/290602-trump-endorses-ryan-after-week-of-tension

I am not expecting McCain or Ayotte to campaign with Trump at their side. Or many other Republican officeholders. They’ve witnessed — along with the rest of us — how Trump handles these events. I trust they’ve watched Trump’s introduction of his own vice-presidential running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, and how Trump talked almost entirely about himself before handing the mic over to Pence.

They all have politicians’ egos that, in normal election cycles, would stand out. Not this year. Not when they have to share a stage with Donald J. Trump.

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VP picks really do matter

Garner

John Nance Garner once famously described the vice presidency of the United States using language that has become legendary.

He said — and I’ll use his actual verbiage here — that the vice presidency “isn’t worth a bucket of warm piss.”

The prickly Texan wasn’t called “Cactus Jack” for nothing.

Well, the office has become something a bit more significant since the time Cactus Jack served with  Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Which brings us to the present day.

Republican nominee Donald J. Trump picked Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to run with him this fall. Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton selected Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia to run with her.

Both men are good picks, given the constituencies to which they appeal. My hope, though, is that the office they seek becomes worth the effort they both plan to expend to attain it.

I guess the modern vice presidency can be defined by the role that Walter Mondale assumed when he became VP during the Carter administration. It’s become an office of actual substance. Mondale showed that a vice president can serve as a key adviser to the president who selects him.

George H.W. Bush’s relationship with Ronald Reagan wasn’t particularly close. Dan Quayle brought youthful enthusiasm to the administration led by Bush. Al Gore and Bill Clinton worked closely together for eight years. Dick Cheney and George W. Bush had an extraordinarily close relationship. And Joe Biden and Barack Obama’s tenure has produced a close personal and professional relationship.

Has the office become worth more than a certain bodily fluid?

Absolutely!

Does it matter, though, in the selection of the next president? More than likely … no.

But anyone who’s “a heartbeat away from the presidency” needs to be taken seriously.

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Welcome to the circus, Sen. Kaine

547384532-democratic-presidential-candidate-hillary-clinton-and.jpg.CROP.promo-xlarge2

Hillary Rodham Clinton laid down an important marker just before announcing her vice-presidential pick.

The Democratic presidential candidate said the person she would select first and foremost needed to be able to step into the presidency immediately if something would prevent her from continuing in the office.

Fine. Fair enough, Mme. Secretary.

Then she selected U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.

Did politics have anything at all to do with the selection?

Let’s see. Clinton had several other names on her short list. They included Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. All of them would fit that qualification. Oh, except for this: They all come from states governed by Republicans, which means that the GOP governor would fill their Senate seats with Republicans, thus putting in jeopardy the Democrats’ hopes of reclaiming the Senate majority.

Virginia’s governor is a Democrat, good Clinton friend Terry McAuliffe. He poses no such dilemma for the Democrats if they win the election this fall.

There were others as well: Labor Secretary Tom Perez, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, retired Admiral James Stavridis.

Indeed, Republican nominee Donald J. Trump surely needed someone to run with him who is capable of becoming president. He turned to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. Pence clearly fills the presidential qualification need for the GOP, given his executive and legislative government experience.

Clinton and Kaine are going to make their first joint appearance today in Miami. Kaine, incidentally, is fluent in Spanish; gosh, do you think he’ll get to say a few words — in Spanish — to his south Florida audience that might include something like, “We won’t build a wall to keep others out!”?

So, the tickets are set. Democrats are getting ready to convene their four-day event in Philadelphia.

Compared to what transpired at the GOP convention in Cleveland, the nominating event coming up is going to look utterly boring.

But in this case — if you’re a dedicated Democrat — boring will be a good thing.