In 2005, as chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, Pence led “Operation Offset” — a failed effort to get the Republican majority to pay for Hurricane Katrina recovery spending with cuts elsewhere in the budget. The idea of offsetting relief spending has now become a standard position for Tea Party lawmakers.
No doubt, in the upcoming Republican nomination battle, there will be a number of leaders who could argue they stood firm for small-government principles. But Pence would be in the unique position of being able to argue that he took his stands not when there was a whole Tea Party movement to rally around him or when a Democrat was in office, but when he was fighting a lonely battle against a Republican administration.
Pence’s name surfaced as a potential presidential candidate every so often on conservative blogs during the 2008 and 2012 nomination cycles. At the time, the fact that he had only served in the House typically left him out of serious consideration, because our political system tends to frown on politicians making the leap from the House of Representatives to the White House. But now that he’s gained executive experience at the state level, he’d be a more plausible contender.
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