Something is missing in Mike Pence’s campaign launch video for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election. Actually someone. There’s Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, his political enemies. Two former presidents appear: Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, whom he takes as role models. And there is the review of his political career, which even has pictures of Pence with Benjamin Netanyahu or Vladimir Putin, but the one that doesn’t appear in two minutes and 44 seconds is the one who was his boss as Vice President: Donald Trump. Pence doesn’t take it to the big screen or mention it, except perhaps implicitly in a phrase that initially seems aimed at Biden: “Every moment calls for a different leadership,” he says.
Pence launched his campaign on the day he turns 64. It is the first time a former vice president has competed with his boss for his party’s nomination. It’s also not often that a losing candidate like Trump tries again in the next election.
Pence’s candidacy was officially registered this Monday and his debut is expected as early as Wednesday with a video, an appearance in Des Moines, Iowa and an interview with the public on CNN news channel. In fact, Pence has been campaigning for weeks in Iowa, the first state where he will face off against the other Republican nominees in a tightly packed nomination race in which the overwhelming favorite is former President Donald Trump and the rising alternative, the governor of Florida : Ron DeSantis.
I believe in the American people and I believe that God is not finished with America. Together we can bring this country back, and the best days are yet to come for the greatest nation on earth! 🇺🇸 #pence2024 pic.twitter.com/A8EkqgCDAm
—Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) June 7, 2023
The only candidate who has so far appealed directly to Trump’s jugular was Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, who entered the race on Tuesday and said a man “isn’t lonely, self-centered, selfish and in love with the mirror.” could be a leader.” “Referring to who was his former friend. The remaining candidates try to strike a delicate balance: not to upset the Republican base, mostly Trumpists, and make them understand that the former president has less chance of getting elected to the White House if he passes the Republican cut.
However, as the campaign progresses, attacks and criticism of Trump are becoming more frequent. DeSantis avoided them entirely on the day his candidacy was unveiled, but then upped the ante in the elections he contested.
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For Pence, that balance is particularly difficult. The vice president, willing to stay in the background and faithfully stand by his boss and not criticize him despite the major slip-ups of his presidency, stood up when Trump wanted him to see the result of the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden was starring in by a margin of 100%, reversed a large majority (306 to 232 electoral votes and a seven million vote difference).
Pence was a front-row witness to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He refused to comply with Trump’s request to halt the confirmation of Biden’s victory in Congress that day. This refusal earned him the wrath of his former boss and his followers. The mob chanted “Let’s hang Mike Pence” as they made their way to the Capitol.
A large segment of Trump’s supporters, who are privy to the election-stealing hoax, still haven’t forgiven him. “It would be easy to be left out. But that’s not how I was brought up. So today, before God and my family, I’m announcing that I’m running for President of the United States,” Pence said in the video.
At the start of his campaign, Pence completely ignores Trump and attacks Biden directly: “Today our country has many problems. President Joe Biden and the far left have weakened America at home and abroad. The American dream is being destroyed by runaway inflation. Wages are falling and a recession is imminent. Our southern frontier is under siege and the enemies of freedom are on the rise across the globe. And old American values ​​are under attack like never before. We’re better than that. We can turn this country around, but every moment requires different leadership. “Today our party and our country need a leader who, as Lincoln said, appeals to the better angels of our nature,” said the former vice president.
“We can take back this country. We can defend our nation and secure our border. We can get our economy moving again, put our nation back on the path to fiscal balance, defend our liberties, and breathe new life into America,” he continues.
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum also submitted his candidacy on Wednesday has started raising funds for the campaign. Candidates must attract 40,000 donors to qualify for the August 23 debate organized by the party.
In addition to the aforementioned Pence, Trump, DeSantis, Christie and Burgum, former US Ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley; the only black Republican Senator, Tim Scott; former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchison; Billionaire biotech entrepreneur and scourge of bright ideology Vivek Ramaswamy; fellow businessman Perry Johnson; political commentator Larry Elder; and politician and businessman Rollan Roberts, son of the West Virginia Senator of the same name. The one who has been excluded is New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, an opponent of Trump who also sounded in the pools.
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