Highlights: To watch Pence on the trail these days is to see a man navigating the awkward, abrupt transition from being next in the line of presidential succession just four years ago to backbencher status among the Republican field. You can see him grapple with his own political mortality, working it out in public.
Since disclosing that he has just $1.2 million cash left, alongside more than $620,000 in debt, Pence’s presidential campaign has not said whether he has qualified for the third debate in Miami next month; he’s reached the polling minimum but not the donor threshold.
Nearly six months into his presidential campaign, and fewer than 90 days until the Iowa caucuses, Pence is not seeing massive crowds like his former running mate Donald Trump, or his fellow Midwesterner Vivek Ramaswamy, or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, or even his longtime frenemy, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Thirty folks at Penn Drug store in Sidney on a recent Friday morning; another 30 at the Olive Branch Restaurant in Greenfield that afternoon; 60 at a senior center in Glenwood the next day. Nor is he seeing anything but single-digit backing in polls. In Iowa, he’s currently averaging just 2.6 percent among Republican voters.
It’s difficult to find a political prognosticator who is not on his payroll who gives Pence any plausible shot at winning the nomination, a reality he acknowledged on the trail earlier this month. “The media has already decided how all this is going to end,” he told just 13 people at a Pizza Ranch in Red Oak.
Burying the lede.
What the duck is a pizza ranch and where can I find one?
They’re a Jesus in your face pizza chain kind of like chick fil a. It’s really bad pizza and it’s buffet style so it’s assy and cold.
So it’s like Cici’s but more like Kaykaykay’s?
Idk cicis the kkk is spot on
Cici’s is a pizza buffet with all you can eat pizza for such a shockingly low price you have to assume it’s like 30% wet cardboard, which the taste supports. It’s where college students go to win bets on whether they can eat fifty slices of pizza and it ends up costing like $3.99.
Having had both, your description of CiCi’s is spot on. Pizza Ranch pizza is significantly better than CiCi’s, especially if it’s not out of the buffet (you can just order from PR like any other pizza place and a lot of people do), and I remember their taco pizza being really good (but I haven’t had it in 20 years). I used to live in a town where the pizza options were Pizza Hut, Pizza Ranch, and Casey’s, and I thought Pizza Ranch was the second best ahead of Pizza Hut but I definitely knew people who disagreed with that opinion (and Pizza Ranch wasn’t enough better to make up for their religious bullshit).
Huh. I’m actually surprised the pizza is decent. The more you know, I guess.
I had never heard of it either, but the headline is still hilarious
I thought it was a user headline when I saw it on Fark earlier. Nope. The actual headline.
It’s like a pizza bar. They have different kinds of pizza in a buffet. I think it’s a Midwest thing.
I’ve seen the same thing in east Texas and western Louisiana too (twenty years ago though, haven’t been in that region since)