re: #196 KGxvi

Interesting thought experiment:

Trump gets impeached and removed, Pence becomes president. First question: who does Pence nominate as VP? Second question: who challenges Pence in the 2020 primary?

There’s so many ways this could play out. I could see Pence offering VP to Cruz to secure a vote to convict (I don’t think Pence is Machiavellian enough for such a move, but still). I could see Cruz rejecting the offer, thinking he could challenge Pence in 2020 and win the nomination (maybe by then the Trump stench is so bad that even the GOP base will not want to vote for someone who was picked by Trump). If Pence as the sitting president is challenged in the 2020 primary, that’s most likely a sign that the Democrats will win the general (see 1968, 1976, 1992)

Well, the only previous example we have is Nixon.

The GOP cannot get a VP replacement through the Senate without some Democratic votes. As in the Nixon case, one would expect a Republican President to nominate a Republican. As such, Gerald Ford was nominated after Spiro Agnew went down because Democrats found him agreeable. The same goes with Ford’s VP Nelson Rockefeller.

Anyone Mike Pence puts up is going to have to be something less than a Dominionist wingnut.