Pence says he is open to running against Trump

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The literature is mixed and a lot of specialists are undecided. It also depends on the kid, Coronavirus is supposed to be more easier to pick up than the flu and my 16yr old was bedridden longer with COVID than she ever was with the Flu. But then again she recovered and is ok now. My inkling is that COIVD is about as dangerous as the flu to kids.

The "science" says differently.
Your daughter was one of the unfortunate ones.

BTW, 16 is getting beyond the context of the children involved in the study.

I was one of those who felt Dan Andrew's over reacted to COVID and even with all his policies Victoria ended up being the worst effected state. There needs to be a moratorium on what was happening during that period between 2020-2021.

In the aftermath I am left with a suspicion whether it was all necessary?

Mike Pence seems to have decided that the only way past Donald Trump is through Donald Trump.

Unlike many of Trump's would-be 2024 challengers, his former vice president is issuing a direct challenge by endorsing against him in critical races in states that were hotly contested in 2020.

Pence's latest move is an endorsement of Republican Karrin Taylor Robson in the Arizona governor's race.

"As Arizona Democrats pursue the reckless Biden-Harris agenda, Karrin Taylor Robson is the only candidate for Governor that will keep Arizona's border secure and streets safe, empower parents and create great schools, and promote conservative values," Pence said in a statement announcing the endorsement. (Robson has also been endorsed by outgoing Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who has drawn Trump's ire for his refusal to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.)

That move puts Pence in direct opposition to Trump, who is supporting former local TV anchor Kari Lake in the state's August 2 primary. "Few can take on the Fake News Media like Kari," Trump said in announcing his endorsement last fall.

Lake has been one of the highest-profile backers of Trump's false election fraud claims. She has gone as far as to say it is "disqualifying" that Robson does not believe the election was stolen from Trump.

The move by Pence to endorse Robson is rightly understood then not as simply a rejection of a Trump-backed pick, but an attempt to affirm that the 2020 election was, in fact, free and fair. Pence and Trump are scheduled to hold dueling rallies on behalf of their preferred candidates in the state on Friday.

And this isn't the first time Pence has done something like this. He backed Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in the spring, putting him, again, on the opposite side of Trump, who had recruited former Sen. David Perdue into the Republican primary

Campaigning with Kemp the day before the May 24 primary, Pence was clear about what he believed the vote meant. "When you say yes to Gov. Brian Kemp tomorrow, you will send a deafening message all across America that the Republican Party is the party of the future," Pence said.

Kemp crushed Perdue by more than 50 points.

It's a remarkable turn of events that Pence, more so than any other Republican considering the 2024 race, has emerged as the one willing to stand up to Trump and his election lies. (Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, isn't getting involved in contested primaries outside of his state.)

through a series of steps -- that Trump is less powerful than he is being made out to be.
The Kemp endorsement -- and the governor's primary victory -- put a crack in the Trump wall. Pence hopes Arizona will make that crack even bigger.

He can run on the platform of enabling Trump while also failing him.

That oughta get him *checks notes* zero votes.

You may not have predicted that Mike Pence—a man who once praised Donald Trump 14 times in a span of three minutes—would ever publicly defy his former boss. But 2022, it seems, is a brave new world in Republican politics.

In the Arizona GOP primary for governor, Pence is, in essence, campaigning against Trump. The former vice president has endorsed Karrin Taylor Robson, a former developer and land-use consultant, whose main opponent is the “Stop the Steal” candidate Kari Lake. Yesterday, the two men both made appearances in the Grand Canyon State: Pence praised Robson at small-scale events in Tucson and the Phoenix suburbs; Trump headlined a rally alongside Lake in Prescott Valley, where he babbled about his usual array of political and personal grievances before thousands of devotees.

This race isn’t the first time that Pence has deviated from the Trump script, but it’s probably the most noteworthy one. Robson and Lake represent a larger battle within the GOP, between establishment types, like Pence, who want to preserve an ounce of sanity in their party, and Trump’s cabal of wild-eyed election-fraud fanatics. By endorsing Robson, Pence seems eager to show that today’s Republican Party can be a place for Americans who accept Trump but are not certifiable; a Robson win in Arizona would be a data point in support of that hypothesis.

Still, those efforts might be too little, too late. Even if Lake and other high-profile Trump endorsees lose—whether in primaries or in November—the party has been remade in Trump’s image. An overwhelming number of “Stop the Steal” candidates are running for state and local positions, and the Republican base is clamoring to elect pugnacious culture warriors, not country-club conservatives. No number of Robsons, or Pences, is going to change that. “You have to separate Trump the person and individual from Trump the phenomenon,” Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and the publisher of the conservative news site The Bulwark, told me. “Trump the phenomenon has wholesale changed the Republican Party.”

Pence has been attempting to distance himself from Trump for a while now—subtly, and without taking on the former president directly.

Now, in Arizona, Pence has waded into a more clear-cut proxy fight. The candidate he’s endorsed is a caricature of the establishment Republican: pretty boring, very rich, and deeply conservative. Robson, who comes from a political family, has been cautious about “Stop the Steal” rhetoric, saying that the 2020 elections “weren’t fair,” but she’s stopped short of calling for anything like decertification. Lake, meanwhile, can best be described as Trump in female form. (“Donald Trump showed us how to fight and I took a few notes!” she said at the rally last night.) She was an anchor on a Phoenix Fox affiliate for 27 years, and she has a certain star power that voters seem drawn to. Lake has centered her entire campaign on the lie that Trump, not Biden, won in 2020. “We had a fraudulent election, a corrupt election, and we have an illegitimate president sitting in the White House,” she said in an interview with Fox News last month.

So it might be tempting to view Pence’s endorsement of Lake’s opponent as rooted in a desire to protect democracy. But Pence’s motives seem more opportunistic. First, by endorsing Robson, Pence is hoping to show that he’s his own man, not just a Trump lackey—a signal that he’ll probably run for president again in 2024, despite the clear lack of voter appetite for him.

More than anything, though, Pence is attempting some serious political damage control. He’s trying to—carefully, methodically—carve out a different path for members of his party, one that keeps them separate from the bombast and election-denying that Trump represents. “Some people want this election to be about the past, but elections are always about the future,” Pence tweeted last night. “If the Republican Party allows itself to become consumed by yesterday’s grievances, we will lose.” It’s not about snubbing the former president, Barrett Marson, an Arizona Republican strategist, told me. Pence “isn’t backing Kari Lake because she’s f*****g insane.”

Voters who once populated the fringe of the GOP are now front and center—and calling a lot of the shots. “There is alarm from many corners of the Republican old guard that they’re being overrun by cranks,” Longwell said. Those cranks can be a political liability. Lake is leading Robson in primary polls, but in a general election against the presumptive Democratic nominee, Katie Hobbs, Robson polls much better, according to the Arizona firm OH Predictive Insights. Other Trump-endorsed Republicans are in tight or losing races of their own, including Herschel Walker in Georgia, and Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania. “There’s so many of these conspiratorial candidates [that] it’s imperiling Republicans” in what should be an otherwise favorable environment for them, Longwell said.

A Robson win would certainly bolster the narrative that Pence and his Trump-weary allies have regained control of the party. The problem is that such a narrative is, at this point, unconvincing. The GOP has already been thoroughly Trumpified: Even the high-profile establishment types who win their primary will be dwarfed by the sheer number of conspiracy-mongering, “Stop the Steal” Republicans on the ballot in November—many of whom will go on to win their elections in safe red districts. In Arizona, candidates like these for State House and Senate are expected to sweep into office, Chuck Coughlin, a GOP strategist there, told me.

The Overton window of acceptable Republican candidates has moved several steps Trump-ward. Even Robson—someone who is considered the establishment choice—has agreed that the 2020 election was unfair. The Republican base is demanding that its leaders repeat their chosen lies, entertain conspiracy theories, and above all else, be willing and eager to own the libs. These voters aren’t clamoring for composed, religious conservatives like Mike Pence, Longwell said, citing recent focus groups she’s conducted; they’re rooting for Trump acolytes like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. “I don’t see an exhausted majority,” Longwell said. “I see an energized group of Trump voters who are determined to find their next brawler.”

DeSatan

Trump's populism paved the way for DeSantis.

But Trump is a clown. DeSantis is a shark.

Much more dangerous.

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday acknowledged he and former President Trump may differ on their approach to advancing their agendas as he urged conservatives to focus on the future to win elections.
“I don’t know that the president and I differ on issues. But we may differ on focus,” Pence told a conference of young conservatives in Washington, D.C.

“I truly do believe that elections are about the future, and that it’s absolutely essential at a time when so many Americans are hurting, so many families are struggling, that we don’t give way to the temptation to look back,” Pence said during a brief question-and-answer session.

Pence, widely seen as laying the groundwork for a possible White House bid, spoke at length about the “Freedom Agenda” outlined by his political advocacy group. While Pence did not explicitly criticize his former boss, his calls for conservatives to look forward, not backward, were a subtle jab at Trump’s unrelenting focus on the 2020 election.

The former vice president drew applause for his praise of the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade. He called for securing the southern border, defending religious liberty, protecting the Second Amendment and barring transgender athletes from competing in women’s athletics.

Pence called for making permanent the tax cuts passed during the Trump administration, which critics say largely benefitted wealthier Americans. And he called for cutting regulations and boosting domestic energy investments to help lower gas prices.

On foreign policy, Pence bemoaned the “woke culture” that he said has seeped into the military, emphasized the need to increase investments in the military, spoke about the need to confront China over trade imbalances and backed isolating Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is releasing a book that his publisher said will include details on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and how that severed his once close relationship with former President Donald Trump.
Pence's book will be released on Nov. 15, 2022. The memoir will cover his life and faith. But it'll also cover his relationship with Trump and, his publisher said, "President Trump's severing of their relationship on Jan. 6, 2021, when Pence kept his oath to the Constitution."