It's a matter of knowing when to raise your head

The eager assistance Mr. Pence provided a senior lawmaker reflected the outsized political portfolio that the vice president and his aides have seized for themselves as the 2018 elections approach. While Mr. Trump remains an overpowering personality in Republican politics, he is mostly uninterested in the mechanics of managing a political party. His team of advisers is riven with personal divisions and the White House has not yet crafted a strategy for the midterms. So Mr. Trump’s supremely disciplined running mate has stepped into the void.

Republican officials now see Mr. Pence as seeking to exercise expansive control over a political party ostensibly helmed by Mr. Trump, tending to his own allies and interests even when the president’s instincts lean in another direction. Even as he laces his public remarks with praise for the president, Mr. Pence and his influential chief of staff, Nick Ayers, are unsettling a group of Mr. Trump’s fierce loyalists who fear they are forging a separate power base.

  NYT

Don't you think that was always the Pence plan?

In addition to addressing dozens of party events in recent months, Mr. Pence has effectively made himself the frontman for America First Policies, an outside group set up to back Mr. Trump’s agenda. He has keynoted more than a dozen of its events this year, traveling under its banner to states including Iowa and New Hampshire.

[...]

Mr. Pence’s team is aware of the unease within the White House, and Mr. Ayers recently told one Republican ally that one reason Mr. Pence is so effusive in his public remarks about Mr. Trump — he has recently hailed Mr. Trump as a “champion” for conservatives and branded the recent tax cuts a “Trump bonus” for America — is to tamp down questions about his loyalty.

[...]

And Mr. Pence has been intimately involved in planning for the 2020 campaign: He joined Mr. Trump for the meeting where the president told Brad Parscale, a digital strategist in the 2016 election, that he would manage the 2020 race. Mr. Pence stood behind Mr. Parscale, rubbing his shoulders, as Mr. Trump spoke.

Dude. Maybe that's going a little overboard.

Marty Obst, a senior Pence adviser, told a Republican donor that Mr. Pence wanted to be prepared for the next presidential race in case there was an opening.

Licking his chops, no doubt.

For now, Mr. Pence and his aides have found a yawning opening within the West Wing, as Mr. Trump’s principal political aides spend much of their time managing his impulses and vying with each other, instead of overseeing the party and this year’s campaign. While past vice presidents, like Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Dick Cheney, have played important roles maintaining the political coalitions of their ticket-mates, neither man wielded Mr. Pence’s independent influence over an administration’s political network and agenda.

Steering Mr. Pence’s strategy is Mr. Ayers, a 35-year-old operative who is the subject of the most pointed criticism from Trump stalwarts. Mr. Ayers regularly joins Mr. Pence in meetings with the president and has told associates that if aides in the West Wing cannot stay on top of things, his office will step up, White House officials said.

Mr. Ayers again unsettled skeptics in the West Wing this month by poaching a politically savvy aide to Mr. Trump, William Kirkland, to join the Pence team. Mr. Kirkland ran Senator David Perdue’s 2014 campaign in Georgia, and Trump officials believe he will effectively run a shadow political office for Mr. Pence, a setup unheard-of so soon into a new administration.

[...]

[Alyssa Farah, a spokeswoman for Mr. Pence,] denied that Mr. Ayers had made comments about displacing the White House political office. “Nick has never said anything of the sort,” she said. She also said Mr. Ayers had not described Mr. Pence as being publicly ingratiating to prove his loyalty: “This is false.”

Wait til Fox News puts this story on TV.

an Brewer, the former governor of Arizona, who introduced Mr. Pence at a Phoenix event convened by America First in early May, said he could operate more freely than Mr. Trump at this point.

“We really, really appreciate him leading our party in that respect,” Ms. Brewer said, adding: “His mission is maybe a little bit different than the president, and he is not under attack 24/7 like the president is.”

The Party is thrilled to have Pence, I'm sure.

UPDATE:



No way Pence lets Haley take first place on any ticket.  If Pence is on the ticket, he's on top.