The Post reports on Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s now very visible interest in a presidential run in 2016. He certainly has support from all quadrants of the GOP and is not off-putting to either establishment or far-right voters and groups.
At this point his greatest advantages may be what he is not. He is not a U.S. senator. He did not take part in the shutdown. He does not lack personality or presence. He does not worry strong social, economic or defense conservatives. He is not a newcomer to the national scene, but neither is he an overexposed commodity. He is not a political novice. He does not have to spend time and money getting reelected this year. He is not a purveyor of paranoia about government or a gloom-and-doom candidate here to warn us that the United States is well on the road to ruin. He is not, in other words, hobbled by one or more of the maladies that afflict other potential 2016 candidates.
...
As for the substance of the message, Pence is perhaps uniquely able to carry out a vision of modernization. That means preparing students to work in the global economy (as he is doing with
his home-grown version of Common Core); taking a centralized
welfare state (including health care and entitlements)
and making it sleek, effective, sustainable and user-friendly (not to mention cheaper);
fixing a broken immigration system to promote American growth; and
remaking American foreign policy to address the diverse 21st-century threats we face from jihadist terrorists and from countries like China, Russia and Iran.
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More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2014/05/09/why-pence/
