A couple of thoughts:

1) Pence isn’t helping Trump at all. He is quieter than a corpse. So someone with a voice and a personality might help.

Flip side:

2) who would it be? The person would have to be the antithesis of Trump – someone intelligent and credible, someone people could trust, someone who could balance out Trump’s worst attributes. I don’t think such a person exists. And it he/she did exist, Trump would pay no attention to the person anyway.

3) Why would any current republican want to sully their reputation by being tied in with the Trump failure that continues every day? If someone runs as VP for Trump, it is someone who will never win another election anywhere, because that person will be damaged merchandise.

There are some smart republicans – think Nikki Haley – but she isn’t going to run with Trump because she plans to run in 2024.

Bottom line, if Pence is dumped from the ticket, the only ones who will run with Trump are radical rightists who will satisfy his dwindling base. And that’s not enough to win.

Rush Limbaugh. Trump gave him the Medal of Freedom last year. He would be a perfect choice as long as his lung cancer is under control.

The speculation was that is why trump put pence in charge of the covid crisis. He knew that he was going to screw the pooch himself and he needed somebody to blame. trump was supposed to fire him in July but that didn’t happen. pence knows where all the bodies are buried and he has never tried to steal trump’s thunder so he might be safe

I hope that Pence quits first .
Then we will wait for Pence’s tell all book comes out too!

I think Trump will keep Pence as the VP unless Pence wants to quit. They work together well. Not to mention the left hates Pence almost as much as Trump, so that could be seen as a benefit.

Maybe Pence will dump Trump.

How could there not be Republicans who are whispering about nominating someone other than Trump?

I’ve heard the same rumor for about a year now. My guess is no, but I know a lot of Republicans who like Nikki Haley a lot.

@Jeruba That would be unbelievable if the Republicans don’t nominate Trump. I really doubt that will happen, but it would be unbelievable. It better not be Pence instead. He is just as scary.

@JLeslie, highly unlikely, I agree; but unbelievable? Hardly. Everything about this time of madness would have seemed unbelievable to a sane person around the time we were cheering the birth of Princess Charlotte and awaiting the release of “Jurassic World.” A private Republican convention is the least of it.

I am not ruling out anything just because I can’t see how it could happen. Russian troops on American soil? Possible. President Ivanka? Possible. Civil War II? Possible. Complete collapse of the grid, and the Internet with it? All possible. So don’t forget where you put your windup radio, and stick a spoon in your backpack.

@Jeruba I am in the frame of mind to agree that everything you named is possible.

Back in January my dad was asking me if my husband and I had current passports to be able to get out of Dodge at a moments notice, and now with Covid we can’t even do that. If it gets really scary we, Americans, are stuck. I’ve been telling my husband to get a Mexican passport for 10 years now, and he never did it (he let his expire over ten years ago). I kept telling him you never know when it will be good to not be an American. As a Mexican citizen he probably could cross back to Mexico even if the borders are “closed.“ Problem is the virus is scary down there too.

I even thought about putting some money in Europe. I don’t know how to go about that. Not to hide it, just to not have all my eggs in the American basket. My brain is on overdrive at times thinking about how bad this could get.

I feel like if Trump loses, and he gracefully hands over the reigns, maybe we have a chance. I heard he is trademarking the word “telerally.” He is already planning for the loss I think.

No, the Senate Republicans own Pence and something tells me Mother has been tallying the favors and secrets.

@JLeslie, a friend of mine has full citizenship in four countries: USA, England, Australia, and Germany. I never saw the point, but now . . . yeah, a Mexican passport would be nice. Or Canadian.

In Lights Out, Ted Koppel said that the grid is highly vulnerable, that nobody in government has a plan for what to do if everything goes to pieces in the cities (and they don’t even want to talk about it), and that in any case it’s going to be practically impossible to evacuate a city of, say, eleven million people; whereas realistically people in urban areas are not prepared to get by for more than about three days on what they’ve got.

There are plenty of unimaginably remote places within the U.S., but most of us have no idea how to live in them, never mind how to get there. Ever notice, when you’re flying over remote territory, one of those long, long empty roads that seem to end up absolutely nowhere, and think, “All kinds of things could happen out there, and no one would ever know”? But somebody uses that road.

The only folks who do have a plan, aside from survivalists, are the Mormons, Koppel said; and if you don’t know the secret sign, they’re not going to let you in.

P.S., “the reins.” It’s a horse metaphor.

Pence would be difficult to replace for several reasons. To begin, there’s his affinity with the evangelical crowd. Then there’s his flat out acquiescence and tolerance regarding the fool. Three years in and he remains among that minority of sycophants not yet caught publicly stating Trump an idiot; he appears completely oblivious to the toxicity of association with anything Trump, and curiously unconcerned with the requisite taints to his own reputation and moral legitimacy. He’s the perfect toady—ethically pliable as playdough and incapable of making waves.

He might go full white supremacist and make Stephen Miller his VP.

@Jeruba The urban centers would be in the worst case scenario if the grid comes down. Scary. I’m going to put that scenario in a box for now, and try not to think about it. My sister is in NYC, I worry about her for multiple reasons during this time already. I will suggest the book to my dad, I think he will want to read it, maybe eventually I will too.

If my husband had just renewed his passport within 5 years of expiring it’s easy (like a US passport) but now that he waited it’s like applying for the first time. His niece and nephew are US, Italian, and Mexican citizens, and his niece is additionally Dominican since she was born there, but I have no idea if they maintain their passports.

@stanleybmanly
Maybe, just maybe Pence is biding his time by remaining neutral?

He’s getting pretty desperate now.
I’m willing to bet he’s looking for a Black-Asian, female, disabled, gay, Jewish, ____ fill in the blank, candidate to cover all the bases. We’ll see.

@LuckyGuy, _____ : polar bear.

@Jeruba Well, he could pass that off as someone supporting the environment and is all for battling climate change.

I think a Gay Jewish Moslem would be ideal, @LuckyGuy

He is not going to intentionally alienate his neo-nazi base.

@seawulf575, exactly the point.