Posts on Mike Pence

Visiting the Heritage Foundation, listening to Mike Pence and Ed Meese.

For minority leader. Meanwhile: Gingrich calls for “Reagan approach to bipartisanship which appeals the conservative majority of the House.”

“[T]he American people didn’t quit the Contract with America, we did,” proclaimed Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) of the Republicans’ loss of the House. As rumored in September, Pence has announced his intent to run for minority leader in the next Congress. His “new vision” is, in fact, the old vision: to “rededicate [the party] to the ideals and standards that minted our majority in 1994.”

Already, Pence has garnered the endorsement of Human Events, which certainly sounds a lot like the magazine’s attempt to make him majority leader last winter, when they named him “Man of the Year” after his rise to prominence for his dramatic plan to address the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by cutting funding to safety-net programs and a grab bag right-wing bugbears.

Other right-wing leaders seeking to regroup and ensure they don’t get left behind as the GOP assesses its political options are also rushing to bolster Pence’s early claim. Pat Toomey, whose Club for Growth worked hard to unseat supposedly moderate Republicans in primaries this year, was nonplussed about the prospect of his PAC helping to topple the Republican’s hold on Congress, and he looked forward to the Club playing an “enormous role” in “rebuild[ing]” the GOP. Today, he says: “I think that Mike Pence would be a great leader for House Republicans.”

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, insisted that yesterday’s vote was not a rejection of the “ideological vision[]” of the modern GOP, presumably represented by right-wing groups like his, but merely an expression of dissatisfaction in “Republicans' performance in taking us there.” Keene also expressed early support for Pence.

Other groups have yet to weigh in, perhaps preoccupied as they scramble for their own spin on yesterday’s results – see, for example, “Integrity Voters Reveal Values Gap,” from the Family Research Council. But Pence did receive a standing ovation at FRC’s “Values Voter Summit.”

As we have chronicled here over the past few weeks, former Congressman Dick Armey and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson are having something of a public spat.

First, Armey said “Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies,” and then Focus on the Family responded by proxy by having a few members of Congress come to his defense and trash Armey.

Then Armey replied by saying that Dobson was primarily “interested in political power” – and now Focus on the Family has enlisted another member of Congress to strike back

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, is criticizing former House Majority Leader Dick Armey for his recent attack on Focus on the Family Chairman Dr. James Dobson.

"Since the advent of the Reagan administration, the governing majority in this country has been comprised of Americans who cherish limited government, fiscal discipline, a strong national defense, and traditional moral values," said Pence, R-Ind. "Supporters and advocates of these principles include former Majority Leader Dick Armey and Dr. James Dobson. Both men enjoy the deserved esteem of millions for their adherence to principle and personal integrity. And both have the right to emphasize those aspects of our movement nearest to their hearts.

"But negative personal attacks have no place in public debate and no place in the conservative movement. It is simply wrong for the former Majority Leader to question the motives of a leader of Dr. Dobson's character and integrity. It is simply wrong to refer to millions who cherish Dr. Dobson's voice of moral clarity as a 'gang of thugs' and 'bullies.'

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council also did his part to soothe Dobson’s hurt feelings

While he served in Congress, Dick Armey co-sponsored numerous pieces of social issue legislation, like the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act and the Ten Commandments Defense Act. That is why I am now perplexed why Mr. Armey is attacking Dr. James Dobson and other social conservatives. Call me biased, but I truly believe families have no greater advocate then James Dobson and that advocacy comes from his heart with no ulterior motives. In a fundraising letter, Mr. Armey mischaracterizes Dr. Dobson's actions while meeting with lawmakers, stating Dr. Dobson is "most interested in political power." In my three years at FRC I have participated in almost every meeting Jim has had on Capitol Hill, and I have never seen even a glimpse of the man that Mr. Armey describes.

In the past, they had all been downright chummy when they get together for the yearly CPAC conference, but now that the Right is facing the prospect of a massive defeat at the polls, the tension between the wing of the Republican base represented by the small government/tax cuts groups like Armey’s FreedomWorks and the wing represented by social issue groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council is finally coming to a head - and more likely than not, the finger pointing over who is to blame has just begun.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana), chairman of the right-wing House Republican Study Committee (RSC), may face a dilemma this November. On the one hand, he calls on readers of Human Events to elect more far-right ideologues, touting the RSC’s efforts over the past two years in pushing tax cuts, advocating Social Security privatization, and – in the name of Hurricane Katrina – pushing for opportunistic cuts in safety-net programs and other longstanding right-wing bugbears, all while blocking stem-cell research and making a spectacle out of Terri Schiavo. Until his recent proposal for a guest-worker program, the Right regarded him as a hero, and there was even a campaign to elect the young congressman majority leader of the House after Tom DeLay’s resignation.

On the other hand, if Pence does not get his wish and the Right loses control of the House, he may find himself leader of the minority party, according to U.S. News and World Report’s “Inside Washington”:

The talk this week among conservative House staffers and GOP strategists is that a Democratic victory in the fall elections could lead to a wholesale junking of the House Republican leadership.

While that would likely lead to a nasty leadership bid for minority leader, the conservatives say that it could lead to the election of Rep. Mike Pence, the Indiana lawmaker who heads the budget-conscious Republican Study Committee.

"If we lose, I can see everybody being thrown out and Pence's fiscal conservative team in," says an adviser to House conservatives. It's an unlikely scenario because insiders say that House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader John Boehner are secure and that, at worst, Boehner would get the minority leader's post. But the staffers said a loss of power could lead to a major party revolt against the leadership, opening the door to Pence, who has led the effort to cut spending and pork.