Mike Pence impresses Hillsdale Prof. Paul A. Rahe

...Pence has taken great care to think through what has gone wrong vis-à-vis the Presidency in recent years. I doubt that there is anyone in Congress who has a better understanding of the office and the duties associated with it.

I would not at all be surprised were Pence to make a run for the Republican nomination in 2012. If he is to do so with any chance of success, he will have to think a bit about how to present himself before an audience in a more natural and relaxed fashion. But this is clearly something that he can do.

Some will note out that no one has moved directly from the House of Representatives to the Presidency since James Garfield ran in 1880, and they have a point. But we live in an extraordinary time – when, in the political sphere, extraordinary things are happening.

Pence’s political instincts are as good as those of Sarah Palin; there is no one on the horizon who is more principled; and he is an exceedingly well-educated and thoughtful man with ample political experience. Garfield once remarked, “The ideal college is [Williams College president] Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.” I suspect that Pence would say the same with regard to G. M. Curtis.

Pence bears close watching. The only thing that he lacks is executive experience – which is, as I have noted in a series of posts archived here, usually for good reason thought requisite. If the campaign that, I believe, he is plotting does not catch fire, he might make a first-rate vice-presidential nominee.