Premise: Trump is impeached and convicted in the Senate*** and barred from holding any further federal office of public trust, Pence becomes #46.
(1) Pence becomes a caretaker President for the remainder of Trumps term therefore becomes #46.
(2) My main question though is that will he be the de facto nominee for the GOP in 2020 or will that open the field to serious challengers so that GOP voters will get a real input on the President in office sworn in on January 20th 2021.
(3) Do you think Pence will give Trump a blanket pardon - for the good of the nation don’t ya know.
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(*** Disclaimer: I know that the GOP Senate isn’t going to convict. McConnell won’t allow enough GOP Senators off the hook to allow conviction. My opinion (<<-- OPINION) is that McConnell will allow just enough Senators in tough races to vote for impeachment to help them in their races but conviction will come up 2-3 shy assuming all the DEMs vote for impeachment.)
Pence is not exactly what you would call a gifted electoral politician. He’s only VP because as an incumbent he was down so far that four months out everyone knew it was over.
Given the probable timeline involved, there really wouldn’t be time for anyone other than Pence to be the nominee. Primary voting starts early March and ends in June. I can’t see any way this could possibly be wrapped up before summer barring Trump resigning.
McConnell said he’s planning for an impeachment trial after Thanksgiving and hopes to have it wrapped up by Christmas.
There is no way that McConnell wants impeachment to extend into summer, if it does it’s likely (IMHO) that the GOP will loose the Senate. McConnell want it all behind him by primary season.
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.WW, PHS
They know it has no chance of success, they believe the inquiry and the parade of witnesses are hurting Republicans, I see no reason they will be in any hurry to put an end to it by handing it over to the Senate any time soon. You just finished saying yourself it would be to their electoral advantage to delay it.
Romney would be all over it. But there would be such resentment among Republicans I think there would be a turning against Romney, especially assuming he did vote to convict. Unless, of course, it were found that Trump really had done something worthy of impeachment…which is not likely.
He was also the real life equivalent of The White Knight, the perfect choice for the GOP. Inoffensive (unless you knew what he stood for) and military looking. Exactly the actor the GOP needed. I think had they had almost anyone else, they would have probably taken the ticket down. But Pence was a whitewashed fence. They loved him. And still do apparently since he hasn’t done much to hurt anyone since taking office. You can tell, however, he’s waiting in the wings to jump into the Oval Office.
