Yet another dividing line: Mike Pence as a ‘nice guy’
Debate starts to sound like a campaign issue
WASHINGTON – Throughout most of his three decades in the public eye, Vice President Mike Pence has been the “cordial conservative.”
As a radio talk show host, he regularly brought on Democratic guests who knew they would get a respectful hearing. As a conservative firebrand in the House, Pence had friendships across the aisle. And when running for governor of Indiana in 2012, Pence treated his Democratic opponent as “if we were in a joint parade.”
Now, one of Pence’s defining characteristics – being nice – is under attack.
Vice President Joe Biden backtracked after being lambasted by progressives and LGBTQ activists for calling Pence a “decent guy” last month.
The question could become a litmus test for Democratic 2020 presidential hopefuls. Sen. Elizabeth Warren being asked by a reporter in Iowa two days later if she agreed with Biden, according to the Des Moines Register.
“You don’t think the vice president is a decent man?” the reporter asked. “No,” Warren said. Likewise, Montana Sen. Steve Bullock, who is considering running for president, was asked in Cedar Rapids if Pence is decent guy.
“I don’t know,” he told NBC. Even some members of his own party who have known him a long time have questioned how the Bible-studying Pence so easily aligned himself with a profane president who regularly calls people names and publicly mocks them.
But the debate on the Democratic side stems from his record on LGBTQ matters – the issue that nearly ended Pence’s political career when, as governor, he signed into law a “religious freedom” bill that critics said was a license to discriminate against gay people.
Biden was criticizing President Donald Trump’s record on foreign policy when, in a speech in Omaha, he characterized Pence as a decent guy.
Cynthia Nixon, an actor and advocate for progressive issues, chastised Biden on Twitter for calling “America’s most anti-LGBT elected leader” decent.
She followed up with a scathing opinion piece in The Washington Post headlined “Mike Pence isn’t ‘decent.’ He’s insidious.”
Some outlets noted Pete Buttigieg, the openly gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who is exploring a 2020 presidential bid, also has called Pence nice. “Pete Buttigieg called Mike Pence a ‘super-nice’ guy. Where’s the outrage?” asked the online newsmagazine LGBTQ Nation.
Buttigieg, who devotes a chapter to Pence in his recently released memoir, “Shortest Way Home,” distinguishes between Pence’s persona and his policies.
“He’s nice. If he were here, you would think he’s a nice guy to your face,” Buttigieg said on “The Late Show” recently when Stephen Colbert asked him if Pence is a “good guy.”
“But he’s also fanatical,” he said. In addition to Pence’s support for the “religious freedom” law, his record includes advocating for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, opposing measures to protect gay men and lesbians from discrimination in the workplace, and opposing expanding the definition of hate crimes to cover offenses based on a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Pence is not known to be personally unkind to LGBTQ people. After the 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Pence called one of the leaders of Indiana’s gay community to express his condolences. But advocates say what matters most is Pence’s policies, which they say dispute the right of LGBTQ people to exist.
Pence hasn’t publicly commented on the debate.
Friends and foes alike say Pence’s major character trait is “extreme niceness,” authors Michael D’Antonio and Peter Eisner wrote in a critical biography of Pence published last year. But that niceness, they say in “The Shadow President,” isn’t passive; it’s “weaponized as a tool of persuasion and deflection.”
When comedian John Oliver criticized Pence’s record last year by creating a parody version of a children’s book Pence’s wife and daughter published about the family rabbit, Charlotte Pence bought a copy of Oliver’s book.
“My dad has always taught me to handle situations with grace,” she told USA TODAY last year, “just to be kind whenever you can.”