The 5th Values Voters Summit was held in Washington, DC over this weekend, sponsored by the Family Research Council, a socially conservative organization linked with the Republican party!
As in past years, all of the ambitious Presidential possibilities usually give a speech at the conference, and the highlight of the gathering is the straw poll as to who is favored for the Presidency in 2012!
Since there are so many competitors, the winner of the straw poll usually wins only 20-25 percent of the total votes, and that was the case again!
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee won this straw poll twice in the past, but yesterday, in a bit of a surprise, Indiana Congressman Mike Pence won over Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin!
Pence, being a Congressman, has not been paid much attention to by observers, but he is a very attractive person in his appearance and his rhetoric, and has backed the Tea Party Movement, so should not be seen as a fluke, but rather as a serious Presidential possibility, although he denied any interest when asked about that! But is not that par for the course at this point of the Presidential cycle to deny interest? 🙂
IF Pence was to become a serious contender for the Presidential nomination, and IF by some chance he won the nomination and defeated President Obama, he would be only the SECOND Congressman to be elected President!
Unfortunately, the history of the first Congressman to go directly to the Presidency is not a good one! 🙁 Republican James Garfield of Ohio was elected in 1880, took the oath of office on March 4, 1881, faced the issue of patronage and the spoils system which overwhelmed his time in office, and was assassinated by an office seeker, Charles Guiteau!
Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881, at the Union Railroad Station in Washington, DC! Doctors probed for the bullet with unsanitary equipment, were unable to locate it, and he suffered through 79 days of pain and discomfort, and finally passed away on this day, September 19, 1881, at the age of 49, the youngest President at his death, except for the later tragic assassination of John F. Kennedy at the age of 46 in 1963! 🙁
So the possible future story of Mike Pence would, hopefully, not be as sad as that of Congressman James Garfield was in 1880-1881! 🙁