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The biggest casualty of the 2020 election was, of course, Donald Trump, who became only the fifth president since the 1800s to be booted out of office after one term and the first in 28 years. But the second most prominent victim may turn out to be Trumps sidekick, Vice President Mike Pence.

Its been pretty clear from the very beginning that Pence was aiming to run ultimately for president in his own right, probably his motivation for accepting the nod as Trumps No. 2 in the first place. He has been a sycophantic Trump defender and explainer in all things, having mastered early on the Nancy Reaganesque adoring gaze at the president whenever in his presence. Be true to the boss, Im sure Pence thought, and hell fall heir to Trumps fanatical base in his own run.

Mondale was annihilated, losing 49 states, carrying only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia.

But in the two most recent cases of one-term presidents George H.W. Bush in 92 and Jimmy Carter in 80 their politically ambitious understudies embarrassingly flamed out when they pulled themselves out of the debris, dusted themselves off and ran in their own right four years later.

Former Vice President Walter Mondale, who went down with Carter in the 1980 Reagan landslide, began running almost immediately for the Democratic nomination in 1984. He faced a significant and tenacious opponent in Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, and barely won the nomination after a fractious primary process in which Hart refused to concede. Mondale made history by choosing the first-ever female running mate on a major party ticket, New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, a move designed to engender enthusiasm and motivate the Democratic base. But alas, after running a lackluster campaign and being spanked by Reagan in the debates, Mondale was annihilated, losing 49 states, carrying only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia.

That takes us to Dan Quayle, the last defeated sitting vice president with visions of sugar plums dancing in his head sent about avenging his bosss loss and running for president in his own right. It was widely assumed by the pundits and prognosticators that Quayle would seek the 96 GOP nomination, and that he would have the pole position. Conservative columnist Jack Anderson in the Washington Post was a particularly exuberant shill for Quayle, writing that Quayle had the inside track, claiming that Quayle tops the list, and that his biggest strength is his fundraising ability.

In all of U.S history, only two vice presidents have ever been elected president after an interregnum between their service in that post and their election as president.

But Quayles 96 campaign ultimately got little traction, and in February of 1995, he withdrew from the race before it even really started, coming only three weeks after he had announced his candidacy at a rally in Indianapolis. Given the hype about his supposed advantage in fundraising, it was ironic that the New York Times headline on the story announcing Quayles withdrawal read Facing financial squeeze, Quayle pulls out of 96 race.

But it wasnt the ex-veeps last humiliation as a presidential aspirant. Lest we forget, Quayle also announced he was going to run in 2000. By then almost a political footnote, his second attempted comeback didnt end well, either. After finishing eighth yes, eighth in the Iowa straw poll, the former conservative darling dropped out of the race and out of sight, claiming he couldnt raise the money to compete.

In fact, in all of U.S history, only two vice presidents have ever been elected president after an interregnum between their service in that post and their election as president Richard Nixon, who won in 1968 after leaving office as vice president in 1961, and now Joe Biden, elected commander in chief four years after departing as vice president.

But even these two exceptions did not involve the circumstances Pence will face having been ejected from office unceremoniously with his boss after one term, with the president with whom he served essentially in disrepute with a large majority of voters. Both former Pres. Eisenhower and former Pres. Obama remained in high regard during the campaigns of their erstwhile underlings.

Also, neither Nixon nor Biden had to contend with a defeated ex-president who threatened to run again to redeem himself. Trump will surely dominate the race and suck most of the air out of the room in the 2024 race if he does run and demean and denigrate Pence to no end with his base if he dares run against him.

So, Mike Pence, welcome as a prospective member of the Mondale-Quayle Hall of Forgotten Vice Presidents. Congrats, I guess.Editors Note: California political consultant Garry South is a veteran Democratic strategist and commentator who managed Gov. Gray Davis successful campaigns in 1998 and 2002, and played central roles in three presidential campaigns.

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Trumped by Trump, Mike Pence heads to obscurity - Capitol Weekly

Brian Howey, Columnist Published 10:43 p.m. CT Nov. 25, 2020 | Updated 10:47 a.m. CT Nov. 26, 2020

Whether it was North Side Gym in Elkhart or the Southport Fieldhouse, or packing Evansville's Ford Center with 11,000 supporters in September 2018, President Trump was at the spearhead of a populist movement. His MAGA rallies filled Indiana's basketball palaces, with thousands who couldn't get in standing outside.

Brian Howey(Photo: Provided)

In contrast, at a solo Oct. 22 campaign rally at Fort Wayne International Airport, Vice President Mike Pence drew a very, very modest 400 supporters.

Both Trump and Pence lost the Nov. 3 election, with Democrat Joe Biden polling more than 80 million votes in a 51-47% popular vote victory. Yet 74 million voted for Trump despite the pandemic and the ensuing economic meltdown. Within hours of his loss, Trump was telling friends he is considering a comeback in 2024, just as he kicked off his reelection bid just days after his 2016 upset victory over Hillary Clinton.

Conventional wisdom had it that if Trump lost, some how, some way it would be Pence who would become the frontrunner. Yet other recent veep losers (Walter Mondale in 1980 and Dan Quayle in 1992) weren't able to make this comeback.

Craig Dunn, the former Howard County Republican chairman, observed in his Howey Politics Indiana column on Nov. 5, "For a relatively quiet man, Mike Pence has shown that he possesses the grit of a riverboat gambler when it comes to his political career. As a first-term governor, Pence could have served out another four years and then made a run for the highest office in the land in 2020, should Donald Trump not have been elected. It was the safe play, but not the play made by Pence. Instead, Mike Pence threw caution to the wind and hitched his wagon and political fortune to the wild ride of Donald Trump."

Pence is now chained to however the Trump legacy bears out. A Politico/Morning Consult Poll released this past week had Trump leading Pence 53-12% in a hypothetical 2024 primary matchup, with Donald Trump Jr. at 8%. Other GOP rising stars such as Nikki Haley and Tom Cotton barely registered.

"The wild card in all of this will be the plans and whims of Donald J. Trump," Dunn observed. "He might decide to make another run in a bid for redemption or weigh in on behalf of one of his children or one of his loyalists. Make no mistake about it, President Trump will happily throw Mike Pence under a bus and label him a loser if it suits his purpose. He has done the same to a litany of qualified and good men and women and Mike Pence should not expect any different treatment.

"President Trump, like him or not, is a death star and tends to destroy anything that enters his orbit," Dunn added.

Club For Growth President David McIntosh, a close friend of Pence, told Politico before the election, If President Trump is not reelected and decides to mount that campaign (Pence) would put any personal ambitions aside to help the president. He holds these things lightly because he knows its either a calling for him or its not. Hell spend a lot of time being out there with members when they need to raise money and helping conservative pro-Trump candidates be successful in their races."

Pence is expected to move back to Indiana, write a book and give paid speeches for the next couple of years. Trump faces an array of post-White House challenges, including tax fraud investigations from New York state (which can't be vanquished if Trump tries to pardon himself), to hundreds of millions of personal loans coming due in the next four years, to health concerns (hell be 78 in 2024). Trump will remain in the headlines, but how his political legacy fares is anyone's guess.

The danger for the Republican Party is that while Trump drew that royal flush in 2016 to win, the fact is that he lost the popular vote twice, with Joe Biden doubling the margin in this past election. Combined with Al Gore's 2000 loss to George W. Bush despite winning the popular vote, you'd have to go back to 2004 to find a Republican (George Bush) who won both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Republicans have only won the popular vote in two of the last nine elections.

There have been three other former presidents who sought comebacks after failing at reelection, with two of them involving Hoosiers. President Martin Van Buren lost to William Henry Harrison in 1840, and made an unsuccessful attempt as the Free Soil Party nominee in 1848. President Grover Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison in 1888, then recaptured the White House in 1892 (Harrison never won the popular vote, either).

In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt attempted a revival against his hand-picked successor (President William Howard Taft) and lost as the Bull Moose Party nominee to Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the only race featuring three presidents.

A reelection of the Trump/Pence team would have given Pence a significant leg up on the 2024 campaign.

Pence's plan B? Dunn predicts, "Presuming that Mike Pence still wants the job of president, he now faces the daunting task of facing as many as 20 potential Republican candidates in a beauty pageant that will unfold no more reasonably than the circus sideshow that was the 2016 primary season."

The columnist is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at http://www.howeypolitics.com. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.

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Brian Howey: Prospects for Trump and Pence in '24 - Courier & Press

GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) Twin Georgia Senate runoffs have Republicans in a quandary. They could admit President Donald Trump lost his re-election bid and turn all attention to salvaging a Senate majority to counter President-elect Joe Biden. Or they could march lockstep alongside Trump and his unfounded assertions of a stolen election.

So far, Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, along with a gaggle of GOP power players right up to Vice President Mike Pence, seem to want it both ways. Some Trump loyalists insist thats not enough.

This tightrope act threatens party unity as Loeffler and Perdue try to beat back strong Democratic challenges from Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively, in Jan. 5 contests that will determine which party controls the Senate at the outset of a Biden administration. The worrisome reality for Republicans is that it wouldnt take much splintering to tilt the contests in Democrats favor in a newfound battleground where Biden outpaced Trump by just 12,000 votes out of about 5 million cast in the general election.

If they want to excite Trump supporters to turn out to vote in the Senate runoff, candidates need to be supportive of what the Trump campaign is doing in the regard to challenging the election, said Debbie Dooley, a national tea party organizer in Georgia and an early supporter of Trumps 2016 campaign.

After Georgias Republican secretary of state and Republican governor certified the states vote totals in Bidens favor, Dooley said, the sentiment among the presidents strongest supporters crystallized. They question why they should support candidates that arent fully supporting Trump, she said.

To be sure, Perdue and Loeffler have made considerable efforts to align themselves with Trump throughout their Senate tenures nearly six years for the first-term Perdue, less than a year for the appointed Loeffler now seeking her first election. Since Election Day, the senators have called for Secretary of State Brad Raffenspergers resignation. Theyve echoed nebulous claims about irregularities in Georgias voting process and tabulation and have yet to publicly acknowledge Biden as the president-elect.

Yet the campaign on the ground offers a different story, with the senators and their top supporters stressing an argument that admits, without saying as much, that Biden has been duly elected and will take office on Jan. 20.

Perdue calls a Republican Senate the last line of defense as he campaigns on a bus emblazoned with a clear message: Win Georgia. Save America.

On stage recently with Pence in Canton, Georgia, the senator got even more direct, cautioning that if he and Loeffler lose, Democrats will have the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Theyll do anything they want.

Indeed, Democrats are maintaining their House majority and Republicans must win at least one of the Georgia seats for a Senate majority. A Democratic sweep would yield a 50-50 Senate with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris breaking the tie as presiding officer.

Loeffler avoids explicit acknowledgements of Trumps defeat, but her message isnt subtle. We are the firewall to socialism in America, she roared at one of the rallies with Pence.

Neither Ossoff nor Warnock is a socialist, but Loefflers hyperbole acknowledges that therell be Democratic veto pen in the Oval Office. So, Loeffler said, We are going to hold the line right here in Georgia.

The balancing act extends through Trumps Cabinet. Im here because I stand with President Donald Trump, Pence declared in Gainesville, Georgia.

The vice president, almost certainly a future presidential candidate himself, carefully parsed his words, declaring that a GOP Senate majority could be Republicans last tool to protect all that weve accomplished. Pence said nothing to counter the passions of crowds that erupted into chants of Stop the steal!

Sonny Perdue, Trumps agriculture secretary and the senators cousin, covered every base, perhaps clumsily. The former Georgia governor called Bidens name, unlike Pence, and warned against giving him a blank check on Americas values. Yet in the same speech, the secretary insisted were not going to give up on President Trump.

The circumstances are precarious enough that many establishment Republicans, including Loeffler and Perdue confidants, decline to speak openly about it. The senators have not taken questions at their joint runoff campaign events, and neither campaign responded to an Associated Press inquiry on whether they recognize Biden as the incoming president.

Trump is doing little to make his fellow Republicans course any easier.

The president has chastised Raffensperger, the Georgia elections chief, and Gov. Brian Kemp, himself a former Georgia secretary of state, on social media. Raffensperger has taken to the editorial pages of The Washington Post to defend his job performance and his conservative credentials. When Kemp announced his certification of the 16 Democrats wholl cast Georgias electoral votes for Biden, the governor took pains to make clear it was a purely ministerial act required by law.

Trump remains defiant even after losing round after round of court disputes and after the General Services Administration finally acknowledged Biden as president-elect, the legal step required for the federal government to begin the customary transfer of power.

As recently as Wednesday, Trump retweeted hollow claims of a fraudulent election, and, in Georgia, his teams top lawyer, Lin Wood, fanned the flames.

Wood tweeted that Loeffler and Perdue should demand that Georgia hold a special legislative session to review ballots and conduct a legitimate recount, despite the thorough one that was held, as a condition for getting the votes of Georgians in the run-off.

Voters like Shaun Tracy are the targets of the muddled messaging.

The 60-year-old came to see Pence, Loeffler and both Perdues, but made clear she was there because of her loyalties to the president. Theres just been too many irregularities and discrepancies going on, Tracy said, repeating the baseless assertion that Bidens victory is due to fraudulent absentee ballots, among other things. Theyre trying to take our freedom away.

Days later, David Perdue heard that refrain more directly.

Standing in front of his campaign bus, the senator launched into his usual entreaty about the runoffs importance. As Perdue spoke, a man in the audience cried out: What are you doing to help Donald Trump?

___

Associated Press writer Jeff Amy contributed from Canton, Georgia.

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In Georgia, Republicans juggle Biden win and Trump loyalties - The Associated Press

At his rare public appearances, the president has not responded to shouted questions from the press about whether he will concede. In total, he has avoided taking questions from the press for 21 days, a remarkably long stretch for a president who is not camera shy. But he has gone off on Twitter, and on Tuesday morning shared a string of bizarre tweets about election fraud from actors Randy Quaid and James Woods, both prominent Trump boosters on Twitter. Hours later, he startled aides when he decided on just a few minutes notice to appear in the press briefing room to congratulate the country on the stock markets performance, with Vice President Mike Pence at his side.

Outside of Twitter, Trump has not commented about the election in days, but a Republican close to the White House said the president reached a tipping point on Monday after he saw the response to a press conference his legal team held last week.

People at the campaign and in top Republican circles tried to distance themselves from the conspiracy theory-laden event, describing it as a circus and national embarrassment. The president was told by advisers he doesnt have to concede, but he should keep his own legacy in mind and start the transition.

The president was going to have to come to terms with what happened and throw a tantrum, said a top Republican official. It took a little longer than people first thought.

Even some of Trumps favorite conservative media hosts are reaching the same conclusion.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson called out Sidney Powell, who was cut off from Trumps legal team on Sunday, for refusing to provide evidence to back up her sweeping claims of election fraud. Conservative radio titan Rush Limbaugh blamed the campaign for hyping blockbuster stuff about election fraud but not backing it up. Its not good, Limbaugh said, encouraging the president to hold rallies in support of Republicans in the Senate runoff races in Georgia.

Unless the legal situation changes in a dramatic and unlikely manner, Joe Biden will be inaugurated on 20 January, said Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

A senior campaign adviser argued that the presidents legal team is now just trying to publicly lay the groundwork for a fairer election in 2022 and 2024.

Theyre trying to figure out how the campaign can set this up for the future beyond 2020, the adviser said. We want to be focused on the future so we can hit the ground running.

The president has also had one foot publicly in the fight, and the other foot privately out the door. Behind the scenes, Trump has mused about his future after the White House, which has included everything from building up a Trump political arm, to investing in a media company, to a potential run in the 2024 presidential election.

Some other members of the Trump family are also waxing nostalgic about the past four years. On Instagram, the presidents daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump posted old photos of her family, including husband Jared Kushner, visiting different sites across Washington and at holiday events.

This time of year always brings back wonderful memories at the White House, she posted.

The couple is expected to leave Washington next year.

Gabby Orr and Nancy Cook contributed to this report.

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Trump carries on a fight everyone else is abandoning - POLITICO

Nov. 11 (UPI) -- After several days out of the public eye, President Donald Trump made a trip to Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday for the traditional Veterans Day ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence made the trip across the Potomac River to honor the nation's fallen soldiers.

A 21-gun salute was fired as they arrived for the wreath-laying ceremony.

Amid a steady rainfall, Trump saluted and Pence placed a hand over his heart as "Taps" was played at the tomb.

Veteran Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, began the service by laying a wreath at the tomb, which contains unidentified remains from each of the major U.S. military conflicts -- World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

The event marked Trump's first public appearance since late last week. He was seen in public after golfing Saturday but has made no public remarks since losing the presidential election to Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and its accompanying amphitheater, where the ceremonies are always held, has been closed to the public since the spring. Other select parts of the cemetery have reopened.

The ceremony was modified this year to ensure physical distancing to mitigate the threat of COVID-19.

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President Donald Trump, Mike Pence honor veterans during ...