Opinion by Hal Brown
I found out about this from two articles on RawStory. Article on left, below, and article on right.
I had to look up to see what The Daily Signal was on Wikipedia. This is where Mike Pence published “Election Integrity Is a National Imperative.” I'd expected a former Vice President to have an essay like this published in a mainstream publication. Turns out it is an online only Heritage Foundation publication.
My hunch is that he had an audience of one in mind and didn’t publish it in a mainstream publication since whichever one he decided to chose there’d be a possibility it would piss Trump off. Even The Wall Street Journal has published stories critical of Trump. Pence needed something with the veneer of respectability so a website like Breitbart would be out. I think this is why he chose The Daily Signal.
I very much doubt it is on Donald Trump's daily reading list so I am sure Pence sent him a copy perhaps with the suck-up points highlighted so “His Worshipped” can see how suck-uppy it was.
Does anybody have any doubt that Pence would do anything to get Trump to ordain him as the next in line to succeed him?
If the Devil, horns, hooves, tail, and all, appeared to Pence offering him Trump’s endorsement for the presidency in trade for his immortal soul he wouldn't hesitate to sign.
Ostensibly the OpEd is supposed to explain why H.R. 1: For the People Act of 2021 is undemocratic. In reality it is merely an excuse for Pence to interject himself into the public discourse and ingratiate himself to Trump. Not only was it the subject of the articles in RawStory but Stephanie Ruhle and her panel discussed it this morning (video). Axios had an article, as did CNN, USA Today, The Hill, and (yes) the Trump hated Washington Post in a Phillip Bump OpEd which begins:
The first words of the essay from former vice president Mike Pence that marks his return to the political conversation are untrue.
“After an election marked by significant voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law,” Pence writes for the Daily Signal, “I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of the 2020 election.”
There were no “significant voting irregularities.” There were irregularities, sure, but there always are. Those in the 2020 presidential contest, which forced Pence to seek new employment, were definitionally insignificant given that they were no more or less substantial than in years past. What Pence is doing is what so much of the traditional Republican establishment has been trying to do since Pence’s old boss began insisting that he wasn’t an electoral loser: Convert the sweeping sense of concern whipped up by Donald Trump into something politically usable.
Searching Pence breaks silence you will find more articles here.
So Pence succeeded in getting a lot of coverage when he broke his silence on a website most people don’t read.
Here are some more examples in addition to the one quote in The Washington Post of him sucking up to Trump:
- After an election marked by significant voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law, I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of the 2020 election.
- HR 1 mandates the most questionable and abuse-prone election rules nationwide, while banning commonsense measures to detect, deter, and prosecute election fraud.
- Leftists not only want you powerless at the ballot box, they want to silence and censor anyone who would dare to criticize their unconstitutional power grab.
- To restore public confidence in our elections, our leaders should uphold the Constitution, reject congressional Democrats’ plan to nationalize our elections, and get about the serious work of state-based reform that will protect the integrity of the vote for every American.
- The American people expect us to ensure that every eligible citizen is able to vote and also make sure that their vote is not stolen or diluted through errors, mistakes, or outright fraud.
He uses the word fraud five times:
The Poll
To what degree do you think Pence really "worships" Trump vs. He is just trying to advance his own presidential ambitions? 10 = Really worships him, 5 = 50/50 and 0 = Totally political calculation