After vanquishing Rep. Mike Pence two years ago, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) followed a theory often said but rarely practiced in Washington: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Pence and Boehner were never bitter enemies, but they were adversaries for one of Washington’s top jobs.

“It’s a choice between reaffirming our current leadership or choosing new faces and new voices to lead our party back to the majority in 2008,” Pence said at the time. “We didn’t just lose our majority. We lost our way.”

The Indiana Republican was endorsed by conservative heavyweights outside Congress, including Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, David Keene and Pat Toomey.

Most House conservatives in Congress thought otherwise, however, and Boehner thumped Pence, 168-27.

Two years later, after another Democratic wave decimated House GOP ranks, Boehner called Pence to ask him to run for House Republican Conference chairman.

“I’ve encouraged Mike to run for the job of conference chairman because there is no one in our ranks who does a better job of articulating the GOP message of freedom and smaller government, and he’s also proven himself to be a team player with the ability to bring our members together,” Boehner said in a Nov. 6 statement. “We need him at the leadership table in the 111th Congress.”

In his letter announcing his bid for conference chairman, Pence said he had not intended to run, but decided to do so after he received encouragement from members of the Republican leadership and members of the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC).

The Boehner-Pence move forced RSC Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) to bow out because of his respect for Pence, a former RSC chief.

Throughout the 110th Congress, Hensarling pushed Boehner on earmark spending. Boehner does not pursue earmarks for his district, but he has struggled to gain consensus on earmarks within the GOP conference.

Boehner’s backing of Pence was seen as a way to neutralize the RSC on earmarks, as well as enlisting a lawmaker he trusts more than Hensarling.

In his failed 2006 bid to beat Boehner, Pence proved, at least then, that he was not a popular member.

However, aides and members have credited Pence for being upfront. When he has clashed with House Republican leaders — most notably when he opposed President Bush’s 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit — he publicly indicated his position early in the legislative process.

The Boehner-Pence pact has been apparent for months.

In September, following the August energy protests that he helped jumpstart, Pence told The Hill, “I’m starting to understand why [the House GOP conference] went with John Boehner.”