IMAGINE HOW DELUSIONAL YOU HAVE TO BE TO BELIEVE YOUR PARTY COULD BE SAVED BY MIKE PENCE'S BRAVERY

This Axios report explains why the mainstream media is taking a possible Mike Pence presidential run seriously:

Mike Pence flew to Israel this week on the private jet owned by arguably the most powerful donor in Republican politics, Miriam Adelson, two sources familiar with the situation told Axios....

A close relationship with Adelson — widow of former casino mogul and megadonor Sheldon Adelson — could potentially bring tens of millions of dollars to a pro-Pence political machine....

The Adelsons gave more than half a billion dollars to Republican campaigns, party organs and interest groups during the past five election cycles, topping out at nearly $220 million during the 2020 cycle.

The political press has evidently known for a while that Pence is serious about courting the richies. As for Miriam Adelson, she probably gets her news from the same deluded journalists who've been insisting that someone other than Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, or a bomb-thrower in the Trump/DeSantis mold could win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. So she arranges a meeting with Pence; word gets out, and now we all have to Take Mike Pence Seriously.

To his credit -- and this may be the only time I'll ever give him credit for anything -- Dan "Baseball Crank" McLaughlin of National Review understands that the nomination is Trump's to lose, and is likely to go to DeSantis if it doesn't go to Trump. But he has a fantasy about a Pence "kamikaze campaign." You may be skeptical, but it totally could happen, and be successful, McLaughline says, because ... well, let him explain it:

... with or without Trump in the way, it would be very hard for [Pence] to win the nomination, because he is too close to the Trump blast radius. Trump’s diehards hate him for standing up on January 6; voters who never liked Trump despise him for not standing up to his boss sooner.

Are there Republican primary voters who "never liked Trump"? Or, more precisely, are there any who aren't professional Never Trump pundits? Because among the GOP rank-and-file, there's no evidence of disgust with Trump whatsoever.

This means that if Pence runs, his main role will likely be that of a spoiler. A Pence campaign that shies away from confrontation with Trump would be pointless and mostly hopeless.

"Pointless and mostly hopeless" sounds like the campaign I actually expect Pence to run, given not only the present circumstances but also Pence's beta-male haplessness.

But Pence is the one potential candidate who could mount a successful kamikaze attack on Trump in the Republican primaries, a campaign that denies both men the nomination. There is no way for Trump to simply hand-wave away his own two-time running mate; Pence can hit him in ways that he will be unable to resist responding to, again and again, and thus draw his fire away from the other contenders. That might give DeSantis, in particular, the covering fire he needs to present himself as an alternative who can unite a divided party.

There's the fantasy, and it's preposterous. It's premised on the notion that if Trump hits Pence back, and gets into a gutter fight with him, it will be bad for Trump. Really? Ask Lindsey Graham about that. Ask Ted Cruz. Ask Marco Rubio.

... having seen how things ended in 2020–21, [Pence] may want to save the party he has served for four decades. Taking Trump out of the 2024 race at the cost of his own campaign, like Sherlock Holmes plunging with Professor Moriarty over the Reichenbach Falls, would be a service to the party and the country. If we take Pence at his word, he appears to be genuinely distressed at where Trump’s head is these days. Being the guy who finally takes Trump’s toxic personality off the national stage, while helping elect a man who continues the positive aspects of the MAGA movement, would cement Pence’s place in history.

Oh, please. Pence isn't planning a run because he wants to save the Republican Party or America. Pence is planning a run for the same reason every other presidential candidate does: ego. He wants to be president, he thinks he's qualified, he thinks being VP makes him the next in line, and he also reads delusional press coverage that says he has a shot. Plus, he already has Secret Service protection, so he's extremely unlikely to be killed while he's campaigning by any of the Trumpers who hate him. So he's running.

The threat of a kamikaze campaign might even succeed as a deterrent. For all his bluster, Trump is deeply invested in his image as a winner, and terrified of being humiliated. Trump has increasingly talked as if he is running again, but he has every incentive to do that regardless of his actual intentions and will not hesitate to pass on a run if he thinks staying on the sidelines is in his best interests.... Combined with the risk of losing a primary to DeSantis, the prospect of a long slugfest with Pence might just be enough to deter Trump from running again at all.

Omigod -- is it possible to be a sentient American in 2022, much less a professional observer of politics, and have so little understanding of Donald Trump's psyche? McLaughlin is arguing, in all seriousness, that Trump might be afraid of being out-bullied by Mike Pence. No, really! That's what he's saying! And he got paid to write this!

Thus far, Pence has chosen his responses to Trump with surgical precision; he has said nothing that would prevent him from burying the hatchet with his old running mate in the name of party unity later on.

This is the only part of the argument that passes the smell test. Of course Mike Pence will bury the hatchet with his old running mate. It's only a question of whether he'll wait till after Trump clinches the nomination or do it before because he knows he can't win. I think Pence is naive enough -- and sufficiently fooled by his press coverage -- to choose the run. The beatdown he'll get is completely predictable, but if he has his mind set on it, there's no point trying to stop him.