Darlings, scoundrels. Again, I have not had time to correspond with you since Nikki Haley announced her bid so many years ago (it feels, at least). There are so many more Republicans in the race now and we will do our best to cover them in order of how much I hate looking at their faces. You can decide for yourself which end of that spectrum we’re starting with.
Welcome to the Thunderdome we call “Who The Fuck Are All These Fucks?” in which we profile, in brief, each of the 2024 candidates for president. This series is not meant to be exhaustive, and you’re encouraged to look into each candidate on your own.
NAME: Michael Richard Pence
AGE: 64
CURRENT JOB: Distinguished public speaker, but basically unemployed.
PREVIOUS JOB: Vice President of the United States (2017-2021)
WHAT DID HE ACTUALLY SAY ABOUT DONALD TRUMP IN 2016: “I frankly hold [him] in really high regard…” no, wait, that’s what he said about former Vice President Dick Cheney, what Pence said about Trump is that he had reached a deal with Reince Priebus to usurp him as the GOP presidential nominee in the wake of the Access Hollywood scandal and that Trump should step aside for the good of the Republican Party, so he definitely understands what motivates Donald Trump.
Donald John Trump had to pick his vice president carefully. If he was going to make it to the White House, he was going to need someone that balanced out his particular skillset. We see this all the time. There’s usually one of three justifications for picking a particular vice president:
- Younger politician picks elder statesman (Kennedy/Johnson, Bush/Cheney, Obama/Biden). This can also be the other way around (Biden/Harris,
- Politician from one region selects politician from other region (Nixon (CA)/Lodge (MA), Carter (GA)/Mondale (MN), Gore (TN)/Lieberman (CT))
- Guy known for one sector picks guy known for other sector
(Reagan, governor/Bush, intelligence director; Perot, businessman/Stockdale, naval officer)
For Trump, a businessman with no government experience, you’d wanna go the third route and pick a longtime politician. Or maybe for Trump, a rich guy from New York, you’d go the second route and pick someone from the down-to-Earth heartland. Or maybe for Trump, who would be the oldest president in history if he won (and if another, slightly older man did not beat him for re-election four years later), you’d pick someone under 70, at least.
The Trump campaign reportedly narrowed down the options to folks like Chris Christie (younger, has governing experience, but from New Jersey) and Newt Gingerich (has governing experience, from the south, but older than Trump) and Mike Pence. Pence had everything you could want. He was deeply religious, which might help evangelicals who were wary of Trump (this turned out to not be even a little bit of a problem). He was in his fifties while Trump was in his seventies. He had been a governor! From Indiana! And most important of all, no one know who Mike Pence was.
Michael Richard Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana, on June 7, 1959. His parents ran a chain of gas stations to support Pence and his five siblings. The young Pence seemed to enjoy Indiana, earning both a bachelors and a law degree from schools in the state, and like all Democrats have idolized figures like John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and then he found Jesus.
Pence had always known Jesus. He was raised Roman Catholic in a family with strong roots in Ireland. Pence was named after his grandfather, Richard Michael Cawley, who was from County Mayo. But he found Jesus in the evangelical manner, which coincidentally also taught him that all of those Catholic saints are fake and there’s only one real saint: Ronald Reagan.
Pence adored Reagan and tried to get into Congress to keep the Reagan agenda alive in the late 80s and early 90s. This did not work, twice, and he became a conservative radio host. He would later refer to himself as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf,” focusing on conservative ideas but without some of the harshness that often accompanied other conservative talk radio personalities. He was also, not unrelated, lesser known than other conservative talk radio personalities. But a decade on the radio meant that when Pence tried a third bid for Congress in 2000, he got in.
Pence was a “principled conservative,” as Paul Ryan would say in 2016. During his tenure in the House, Pence routinely opposed government overreach by the Bush administration when it came to public education or helping old people buy their prescriptions, though he proudly backed the USA PATRIOT Act that expanded police powers and weakened civil liberties.
Among conservatives, Pence cultivated a reputation as a guy who showed up and did his job with dedication. He was elected to the third-highest spot in the Republican caucus in the House and was often floated as a potential presidential contender or maybe a challenger for one of Indiana’s seats in the U.S. Senate. But while dyed in the wool conservatives were into Pence, outsiders were still not seeing him at all.
In 2011, Pence announced a bid for Governor of Indiana. Pence easily took the GOP nomination and Indiana was a reliably Republican state, which is why he narrowly won. I mean narrowly. No candidate in the three-way race won more than half the votes and Pence had a scant 75,000-vote lead over Democrat John Gregg, winning 49.5%-46.6%. In the previous election four years earlier, Republican Mitch Daniels trounced the Democrat, 57.8%-40.1%. Pence could not convince voters that he was the real deal.
No matter what else he accomplished, Pence’s legacy in Indiana would be the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which he signed into law on March 26, 2015. The act gave businesses an affirmative defense in a lawsuit that their exercise of religion would be burdened by whatever the thing was they were being sued over, which was a way to legalize discrimination in the state, particularly against LGBTQ+ people. What Pence and his allies perhaps did not expect was how quickly Indiana businesses would respond – negatively – to the law. Subaru, Cummins, Salesforce.com, and Angie’s List, which all had significant business in the state, condemned the law and halted expansions if they had them. The NCAA began debating whether an upcoming Final Four game should be moved out of Indianapolis and NASCAR criticized the bill for allowing “exclusion [and] intolerance.”
Pence wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal defending the law, writing, “”If I saw a restaurant owner refuse to serve a gay couple, I wouldn’t eat there anymore.” But he struggled to articulate what the law was for if not a legal shield against discrimination, and on April 2, he signed a bill amending the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that barred it from being used to permit discrimination, which angered conservatives.
Pence endorsed Senator Ted Cruz’s bid for the White House in 2016 while he was running for re-election as governor. But with Cruz’s campaign faltering, Pence’s folks were in touch with Trump’s folks. Pence was exactly what Trump needed (as mentioned above, plus Pence had connections to deep-pocketed party donors that Trump did not) and he became the vice presidential nominee.
The Republican National Committee wanted Pence to be the actual nominee. It tried to push Trump off the ticket in the wake of the Access Hollywood scandal, creating a new Mike Pence/Condoleezza Rice ticket instead, but Trump refused to step aside. Pence stood by him on the ticket and they won, impossibly, with Pence serving as the 48th Vice President of the United States.
Okay, we’re gonna skip this bit. You were there. He was vice president, stuff happened, then 2020 comes and Trump and Pence lose, and some people do not take it well.
Mike Pence’s constitutional duty was to oversee the counting of the electoral votes. Donald Trump argued that he had the power to decide which votes should count and which shouldn’t. It is important to take a moment here to set something out plainly: Donald Trump did not believe that there was widespread voter fraud. Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to use his role to throw out a democratic election. Donald Trump knew that he lost the election. Donald Trump idolized dictators who could stay in power indefinitely, and he wanted to be one.
Too often when we discuss these events we are not so honest. Trump’s lies about voter fraud were intended to provide cover so he could remain in power. They were not genuine beliefs he held, and he does not hold them now, either. Mike Pence, on January 6, 2021, was trying to get it over with. His time as vice president was coming to an end and maybe he could have a shot at the White House in 2024 if things went well.
Things famously did not go well. Pence was rightfully angry that Trump had created the conditions that led to Pence’s life being endangered by a bunch of black ops cosplayers, and the final days of their administration were spent in different circles. Pence attended the inauguration – which Trump did not – and then he slept on someone’s couch.
Yeah, Pence, uh, didn’t have a plan. The Governor of Indiana gets a house. The Vice President gets a house. The ex- those things gets nothing. Pence moved from guest bedroom to guest bedroom before finally buying a house in Indiana and planning his next move. Pence still wanted to be president. But what did he believe?
This isn’t a Nikki Haley situation where we don’t know what Pence really thinks. Here are Pence’s political views:
- Low taxes and limited government promote economic growth (source)
- God is the most powerful force in the universe and a nation that turns its back on God risks His wrath (source)
- LGBTQ+ people are fine but they shouldn’t flaunt their sexuality (source; Pence is one of many pols who say they think differently than they did in the 90s but uh maybe not)
- Straight people shouldn’t flaunt their sexuality either, no one should flaunt their sexuality, you cannot leave me alone in a room with a woman unless she is my wife or we may offend the Lord
- Abortion is an affront to God (source)
- Not owning at least one gun is an affront to God (source)
- “Limited government” does not apply to police powers (source)
It’s mostly classic conservative stuff. You’re not going to find any big surprises there. No, it’s what’s missing that matters. What does Pence believe… about Donald Trump?
The Trump faithful think Pence is a cop-out who wouldn’t stand behind America’s Biggest Boy in his time of need. Indeed, at a pro-gun event in Indiana, Trump supporters booed Pence.
Pence can’t really distance himself from Trump. He needs to court those people if he wants to win the nomination. He also can’t be too close to them, or he might alienate the majority of voters, who oppose Trump.
Pence is stuck between a rock and a hard place, except that the rock is he wants credit with Trump allies for taking an obviously stupid job as Trump’s VP” and the hard place is “he wants credit with anti-Trump folks for not trying to do a coup d’etat with his old boss” and there’s just no gap there for him to occupy. That’s where his presidential bid is meant to dwell and it’s like dwelling between the rim of the toilet and the bottom of the toilet seat. If there’s any space there, you don’t want to be in it and you certainly don’t want to meet anyone who likes spending time there.
