Should I stay or should I run? Pompeo under pressure over U.S. Senate seat

[webfact]

Should I stay or should I run? Pompeo under pressure over U.S. Senate seat

By Steve Holland and Lesley Wroughton

 

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks following a meeting of the UN Security Council at UN headquarters in New York, U.S., August 20, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican pressure on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to run for the U.S. Senate next year to help keep the party's majority intact is coming up against President Donald Trump's hope of keeping one of his most trusted aides in his administration.

 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans believe the former U.S. congressman from Kansas would be a strong candidate should he decide to run for one of the state's Senate seats in 2020.

 

"Secretary Pompeo would clear the field and guarantee the Senate stays Republican," said Scott Reed, senior political strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

 

But Trump has grown increasingly reliant on Pompeo as he juggles a variety of global challenges and would prefer that he stay, several people familiar with the situation say.

 

A source close to the White House said Trump and Pompeo have discussed the Senate race.

 

"The president wants more seats in the Senate but doesn't want to lose Pompeo," the source said. "He's probably one of his most trusted aides."

 

Pompeo, 55, has aligned himself closely to Trump as he actively pursued his policies on Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and in the Middle East, and Trump has found him to be a strong successor to Rex Tillerson, whom the president derided as "dumb as a rock."

 

"I think there is some pressure within the White House to try to clear all this up. But the president wants him to stay," said a Republican campaign official.

 

One Republican official, who asked to remain unidentified, said there was some expectation that Pompeo would decide whether to run over the Labor Day holiday weekend that ends Sept. 2.

 

But a person familiar with Pompeo's thinking denied that was his plan.

 

Other officials said Pompeo was under no particular pressure since the deadline to file for the Republican nomination is not until next June.

 

A spokesperson for Pompeo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the issue.

 

CONFIDENCE

McConnell and other Republicans believe Pompeo can keep the U.S. Senate seat in Kansas now held by Pat Roberts, who has decided not to run for a fifth term.

 

They do not have the same confidence in Kris Kobach, a former Kansas secretary of state who has said he is running. Kobach, a conservative hawk on immigration, lost the governor's race last year.

 

On the Democratic side, former U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom is running, as well as former U.S. Representative Nancy Boyda. There has been some pressure among Democrats for Kathleen Sebelius, who was Health and Human Services secretary under President Barack Obama, to run, but she has not committed.

 

Republicans want to ensure a win in Kansas to improve their chances of maintaining control of the U.S. Senate amid concerns that 2020 could be a difficult year, with incumbents Martha McSally of Arizona and Cory Gardner of Colorado showing signs of weakness.

 

Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and is running for Gardner's Senate seat.

 

Pompeo has offered mixed messages on his plans. As recently as Wednesday he told the Washington Examiner that he would remain at the State Department.

 

"I am going to stay here," he told the newspaper.

 

But Pompeo is clearly keeping his options open, either for the Senate or even possibly for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

 

Political experts took note on Tuesday when he attended a luncheon meeting of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity organised by New York billionaire John Catsimatidis and attended by heavyweights Steve Forbes, Art Laffer and Stephen Moore, as well as big Republican donors.

 

(Reporting By Steve Holland and Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Dan Grebler)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-08-23

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[Bluespunk]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Pompeo has offered mixed messages on his plans. As recently as Wednesday he told the Washington Examiner that he would remain at the State Department.

 

"I am going to stay here," he told the newspaper.

Yep, that is clearly a mixed message.

 

Almost Sphinx like in its complexity and indecipherability. 

 

What could he mean by that statement...

[spidermike007]

Surely, nobody would miss him as secretary of state. He has brought an incredibly low amount of distinction, to the role and position. But, in the senate he could be quite a difficult person to deal with. 

[Emdog]

A smart rat is the first off the sinking ship....

He'll stay, have someone write a book for him, go on talk circuits then get hired as lobbyist.

Who said being a swamp creature is a bad life?

[spidermike007]

36 minutes ago, Emdog said:

A smart rat is the first off the sinking ship....

He'll stay, have someone write a book for him, go on talk circuits then get hired as lobbyist.

Who said being a swamp creature is a bad life?

Most of Trump's appointees and department heads are either ex lobbyists, or ex Wall St. crocodiles. Drain the swamp? Quite a campaign slogan. If only there were a nanogram of integrity behind it!

[mtls2005]

The GOP can't afford to lose a Senate seat in KS, full stop.

 

Kris Kobach is a non-starter.

 

Pompeo may have to run, but it will be a difficult needle to thread.

 

He's closely aligned with trump so that's a negative in any demographic except elderly white men. And his recently unearhted dissing of trump in 2016 will haunt him.

 

Long New Yorker article... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/26/mike-pompeo-the-secretary-of-trump

 

 

Pompeo warned Trump would be an 'authoritarian president' in 2016. Now he's one of Trump's most loyal and trusted advisors

 

"We've spent 7.5 years with an authoritarian president who ignored our Constitution. We don't need four more years of that," Pompeo said in reference to Trump in a video clip that resurfaced alongside a sweeping New Yorker profile of the secretary of state.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/pompeo-in-2016-warned-trump-would-be-an-authoritarian-president-2019-8

 

 

This kind of two-faced, hypocrisy will be played over and over in campaign ads. 

 

Lindsey Graham, who said this about trump in 2016,

 

"He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot."

 

also faces similar challenges, exacerbated by trump's declining mental state.

 

 

 

[Srikcir]

Please run for the Senate.

You'll no longer sheltered by Trump, the Republican majority Senate and privileged to silence your detractors in the State Department, nor from the electorate in general and professional statesmen, you'll have a lot to answer for your support for your leader POTUS Trump's foreign policies. 

I look forward to your debates with Republican candidates for the Senate, with the Democrat candidate should you win the Republican primary, and your town hall meetings with the electorate.

[Paul Henry]

Pompeo can kiss his <deleted> goodbye, any weak livered person who does a 180 degree turn deserves no respect and this will come back to haunt him irrespective of what he does.Denogrates Trump then sucks up to him to get a top job. Same goes for Graham just feathering their nest, men, of no principle. The American voters have had enough and will show they put the country before political and self interest gain. The top 1% will still vote for the man who gave them tax cuts and other unmentioned benefits.