It’s tricky to count on Pence as Trump’s ‘good cop’
Conventional wisdom has it that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will offer a needed balance to Donald Trump—be the yang to Trump’s yin, the good cop to Trump’s officer-gone-rogue. As the thinking goes, Pence will give the Republican ticket diplomacy and political experience, calming the nerves of jittery voters imagining the combative New Yorker’s finger hovering over the nuclear trigger.
If this were a conventional campaign in a conventional presidential election year, those seasoned observers would have a better point. But why would “conventional” anything be relied upon when this year’s presumptive nominee gained that status by figuratively sticking his middle finger up at the world in the name of making America great again? Trump’s supporters like that he rejects political correctness and uses insults to silence or nudge people out of his way. Diplomacy and tact are not what they’re looking for, and by picking someone who heralds those qualities, he might leave his base thinking he was going soft. Trump even told The Wall Street Journal he wanted a “fighter skilled in hand-to-hand combat.”
The mild-mannered Pence doesn’t come across that way. In a 1991 essay headlined “Confessions of a Negative Campaigner,” he pledged not to run disparaging or insulting ads, saying a campaign should “demonstrate the basic human decency of the candidate” and focus on advancing the issues.” One can only imagine the choice words Trump might have for that attitude.
“Pollsters will attest—with great conviction—that it is the negatives that move voters,” said Pence’s piece published by the Indiana Policy Review, a publication of The Indiana Policy Review Foundation, which he once ran. “The mantra of a modern political campaign is ‘drive up the negatives.’ … It is wrong, quite simply, because he or she could have brought critical issues before the citizenry.”
Right. Critical issues like who’s sweating and who’s showing his disabilities and whose manhood is weaker. How seriously could voters take Pence’s commitment to civility if he’d join the ticket of someone who refuses to practice it?
The Indiana foundation, by the way, produces “white papers” intended, according to its website, “to make scholarly research on Indiana issues more widely available to policy analysts and researchers.” Part of Trump’s attraction is that he’s not the “white paper” type. So maybe that’s also balance. But what does it say when in 2016 America, “balance” can mean two straight, white, married, middle-aged, upper-income conservative men who think government needs shrinking?
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would have been Trump’s spiritual soulmate as VP, with his penchant for ordering people to “sit down and shut up!” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the other leading VP contender, scrambled in the final hours before Trump announced his running mate choice to outdo even Trump’s anti-Islam credentials. Gingrich suggested we test all Muslim-Americans to see how they feel about Sharia law as articulated in ancient Islamic scriptures. If they agree, they’re deported. No threat of sanctions against native-born Americans for believing in white supremacy.
Pence, by contrast, has denounced Trump’s plan to ban Muslims as offensive and unconstitutional. He might help Trump in Iowa, whose caucuses Trump didn’t win. Republican voters there tend to favor evangelicals, and Pence describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”
He could gain points for signing Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law last year, allowing businesses to refuse to serve certain customers on religious grounds. But he could lose points for having retreated within days, in the wake of an uproar over anti-gay discrimination that included major boycott threats. He signed an amended bill that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The events took a toll on his standing. His approval ratings in Indiana have dropped into the 40s. By signing the law he alienated women, a group Trump already has a deficit with. By signing the amendment, he ticked off evangelicals. Some criticized him for a lack of guts, others for a lack of heart. And heart is part of the balance he’s supposed to bring to the Trump ticket.
And let’s not forget what Trump’s appeal shares with Bernie Sanders’ on the left. Both framed themselves as outsiders in a rigged system, giving both ammunition against presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Claiming this or that opponent was bought by special interests, Trump signaled he supported campaign finance reform.
But Pence was a big supporter of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which said government could not regulate political advertising by corporations and unions, as a form of protected free “speech.” Pence even opposed congressional attempts to require disclosing who’s behind the ads.
Who knows what voters will do in the privacy of their voting booths come November? If one thing can be said of Trump supporters, it’s that they’re hard to pigeonhole. Consider these anonymous confessions from some on the NBC website Electionconfessions.com:
1.“I’m a Hispanic wounded veteran who is pro gay rights & pro choice, and I’m tired of people treating me bad because I’m voting for Trump.”
2. “I voted for Trump and I am too embarrassed to admit it.”
3. “I’m only voting for Trump because of immigration.”
4. “I get Donald Trump. Please God help me.”
Maybe Trump did bring Pence in to give an appearance of balance. But he may just be the arm candy, since Trump is known for not trusting or answerring to anyone but himself. How much standing will Pence actually have to challenge him? In keeping with his go-it-alone approach, as well his shifting views on most issues, Trump probably thinks he can provide his own balance, too.