A bad week continues

Gov. Mike Pence has had a bad week, and this isn't going to make it any better. The conservative Hot Air blog just did a post-Freedom Summit survey asking its readers for their GOP presidential picks. Confirming that he is, as the digital kids say, trending, Scott Walker came in first of the 14 candidates listed, and Ted Cruz was second. So this readership is obviously from the conservative wing of the GOP. And what did they think of Pence?

On the opposite end of the “pretty good week” spectrum is Mike Pence, who finished dead last with a total of 6 votes out of nearly 2500 cast. Between Pence’s support for Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and the creation of a government media outlet in Indiana, it may be hard for primary voters to divine precisely which nomination Pence might be running for. And although he performs better on the “first choice” vote than a number of other candidates, John Kasich may soon suffer a similar Pence-style constituency ceiling as the Ohio governor travels the country pushing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. As goes Pence, so might also go Kasich; stay tuned.

Ouch. The Medicaid sellout reformation also reminded voters of Pence's Common Core tap dance in which he seemed to side with conservatives then championed a state set of academic standards that looked very much like Common Core. If this race needs a good governor or two (and it surely does), Walker has governed successfully on strong conservative principles in a very blue state, so that doesn't leave a lot of room for a new governor who seems to keep wanting to have it both ways.