The bad bind bedevilling Mike Pence and Chris Christie
Whether they grimace or they grin as they say it, more and more Republicans seem to agree that Donald Trump is likely to capture the party’s presidential nomination. But that has not deterred others from hoping against hope and entering the contest. Chris Christie, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, announced his candidacy from New Hampshire on June 6th; Mike Pence, a former vice-president, announced his own bid from Iowa the following day. A less prominent contender, Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, also entered the fray.
Study the histories and motivations of Messrs Christie and Pence—with all due apologies to Mr Burgum—and you quickly see the problem with much of the effort to dethrone the former president. Pitching Trumpism without Trump is much harder when you were a devoted courtier to him.
The two men will confront the same problem differently. Mr Pence is a polite, midwestern evangelical Christian who loyally served as deputy to the brash boss. Throughout almost every scandal of the Trump administration, he remained remarkably supine. But in the aftermath of the election of 2020, Mr Pence’s spine stiffened even as most elected Republicans were seen to be made of spongier stuff. Rather than accede to Mr Trump’s demands that he hijack the procedural transfer of power on January 6th 2021 and declare him the winner, Mr Pence certified Joe Biden’s victory. A crowd of Trump supporters descended on the Capitol, some intending to lynch the vice-president. “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done,” Mr Trump tweeted from the White House, mid-riot.
2023-06-06 06:19:02
Original from www.economist.com