‘Nice guy’ Mike Pence is a backpedaler who can’t make decisions, didn't accomplish anything as Guv and couldn’t run a Wendy’s, Indiana Republicans say. OUCH.
The former Veep may be about to announce a presidential run, but Republicans in his home state say he's not their first choice for president in 2024
On a drizzly day in December, Indianapolis talk radio host Rob Kendall was railing against Mike Pence on the radio show he co-hosts, “Kendall & Casey” on WIBC.
“For 20 consecutive years, Mike Pence has been in public office. What is the signature accomplishment of Mike Pence? Anyone? Anybody?”
Pence had just said in an interview with Fox News that he was considering running for president, and that he had “one more season” left in him.
Kendall went off:
“You notice he doesn’t have one more season of getting a real job, he doesn’t have one more season of contributing to the economy, he doesn’t have one more season of producing anything of value to the collective, because he calls it public service. Let’s call it what it is: The Grift.”
People who don’t live in Indiana, or do but don’t listen to the radio, may be surprised to learn that Rob Kendall is a limited-government conservative who is pro-life and attends services at a conservative church.
He’s not the kind of person you’d assume would be stewing in anti-Pence hate.
When reached by phone this month, Kendall had plenty more to say about a possible Pence run for president in 2024.
“He accomplished next to nothing while he was governor,” he says. “He got saved by Trump. And, what else is he going to do? What applicable skill set does he have and what has he done in the private sector his entire life?”
Of course, he could get some other kind of job, I point out.
“Yeah but Mike Pence doesn’t do a job in the sense where like he produces things,” says Kendall. “If you told Mike Pence he had to turn a profit on a Wendy’s near a crowded Interstate for a week, I don’t think he could do it.”
Kendall used to have a very different view of Pence.
“I was a tried and true believer,” he says, “because I saw the public Mike Pence, before he was elected governor – the guy who would be on Fox News and CNN and giving these great speeches when he was a House member,” he says. “And you’d say wow, that guy’s from Indiana, that’s our guy, wouldn’t it be great if he was in charge.”
When he ran for governor in 2012, Kendall signed up to be a county coordinator, responsible for rallying support for Pence in Hendricks County, just west of Indianapolis.
“I was looking for ways to get involved and help the state. And, I went from something that was one of my biggest honors, to have helped Mike Pence get elected governor, to one of my biggest regrets, because he did not govern the way he promised.”
Kendall points to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which was debated for months by the Indiana General Assembly and then signed into law by Pence, only to have Pence turn around and support weakening it amid an onslaught of negative national media, with corporations threatening to boycott the state for what they said was an anti-LGBTQ law.
“It really showed what Mike Pence was, that he will do the political thing rather than what he believes to be the right thing,” says Kendall.
Even Republican Party loyalists in Indiana seem to have tired of Pence.
“I’m much more DeSantis than I am Pence,” says Chris Callaway, a former county GOP chairman in Monroe County, in southern Indiana. “Pence was good for Trump as a running mate because he balanced Trump out with Evangelicals. On his own, Pence is nothing.”
He goes on to call Pence, a “very, very poor successor to Mitch Daniels as governor of Indiana.”
“The trouble with Pence is he’s too easily viewed as wearing his religion on his sleeve,” he says. “And I think that you can be religious – which, I think Mitch Daniels is – without wearing your religion on your sleeve.”
Pence as the nominee in 2024?
“I don’t see it,” he says.
Another person who was a county coordinator for Mike Pence’s campaign for governor in 2012 had things to say about Pence that are too rough to be quoted here.
He went on to describe Pence as being heavily influenced by a few fundraisers – the main one a moderate Republican who “hates conservatives” and who succeeded in getting Pence to sever his ties with many conservatives in the state who’d supported his campaign for governor.
Rocky Rice, the 62-year-old owner of Rocky’s Pizza in Bloomington, knows Mike Pence personally.
“I rode horses with Mike for two hours, side-by-side,” he says.
It was in May of 2016. Pence rode on Rice’s horse, named “Baby.”
As they rode, Rice said he told Pence that he knew it must be hard being governor, but that he should have stayed true to his beliefs and not backed down on RFRA.
“He says, ‘That’s politics,’” Rice recalls.
“He backpedaled on it and let it go through instead of standing true to his beliefs,” says Rice of the RFRA battle. “He backpedaled on that, and gave in. If you get elected because of your beliefs and your stances on stuff, you should stay true to that. You shouldn’t differ from that to make another group happy if it’s not what you believe in.”
On the job he did as vice president, Rice says he think Pence “turned his back” on Trump at the end.
“That was his boss. What’s he going to do to us?” he asks. “And I think a lot of people, they don’t lose that stereotype. That’s just my opinion.”
Rice says he’ll support Trump for president in 2024.
“My opinion is he’s the only thing that can get us back going again,” he says.
Amy Rainey, who ran for state legislature in Elkhart County in 2022, says her opinion of Pence has shifted in the last few years.
“It’s interesting because I used to be a really strong Mike Pence supporter,” she says. “I think when Trump ran I was not a strong Trump supporter whatsoever and adding Pence to the ticket definitely helped solidify that that’s who I would vote for because he’s always someone that’s been trusted.”
She says she started to do more research and realized Pence was not quite the person she’d thought he was.
“Things were handed to him, businesses, and he ran them into the ground,” she says. “He didn’t really have any personal accomplishments where you could say, ‘Hey, this guy has done a great job at this or that.’ And even looking back to his governorship, there weren’t a lot of wild successes during that time. It was a pretty quiet time.”
Wanting to talk to people in Mike Pence’s hometown, I drove over to Columbus, Indiana, a charming small city of 55,000 known for Cummins Engine and its eclectic mix of historic and modern buildings, many by famous architects.
It was here that Mike Pence grew up in a house that backed up to a cornfield and showed horses in 4-H.
In front of the Wal-Mart on the west side of town just off I-65 I stand out in front with a plan to ask people what they think of the former governor running for president.
The first person I ask says she was a year behind him at Columbus North High School.
She calls Pence a “great guy” and a “great person” who would be on her short list -- but probably not at the top of it.
“I think I like Ron DeSantis actually a little bit more because honestly sometimes Mike may be almost too nice of a guy,” says Donna Stambaugh.
As president, she said she thinks Pence would be “fair” and “would try to be conciliatory to people with other views.”
“But I’m not sure he completely understands the circumstances that we’re in right now in the country,” she says. “I’m just not sure that he’s going to be comfortable playing hardball with people. It’s just not his nature.”
Another person I asked also knows Pence personally, and loves him.
Tim Scroghan, who was sitting in his truck in the Wal-Mart parking lot, calls Pence “very honest, very sincere and down to earth.”
“I speak very highly of him, because I know him personally,” he says, explaining that he used to take care of Greg Pence’s property in Columbus a few years back when he had a commercial mowing business.
Greg Pence, now a member of Congress, still lives in Columbus, in the old Mutz Mansion.
“Mike would always come in there and say something to me, because he was always at his brother’s house,” says Scroghan. “He’s a very good man, good family orientated. I’ve known him personally and I just know, there’s nothing bad about him. And when he says something, he means it. He means it from his heart, he really does.”
“I’m a Christian and I know Mike,” he says. “He’d make an excellent president for our country, and right now, we need one, believe me.”
(He adds that either Pence or Donald Trump would be good picks).
But what about those who’ve worked for him?
A former staffer who worked in the Pence administration when Mike Pence was governor of Indiana, calls him a career politician.
“He was looking at his next steps,” she says. “Mike Pence is always trying to be president. When he was governor, he was thinking about being president. That’s why it was like, ‘Don’t tick too many people off.’ He’s a career politician.”
She says as governor he seemed to struggle to make decisions.
“I think he tries to be good, and I think he gets a little scared,” she says. “He’s not the go-it-alone guy.”
“I will say that, across the state people would say, ‘How could he ever be president? He couldn’t run Indiana.’ That was a common theme judges, among lawyers…”
Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch….!
(A shorter version of this story ran in the DC Journal: https://dcjournal.com/home-folks-not-sold-on-nice-guy-mike-pence/)
Let's not forget he was in charge of the disastrous Coronavirus Task Force.
Margaret, excellent interview on the article on WIBC this morning! I cannot imagine why Pence would ever consider running in 2024. RFRA was an unnecessary back-down. His leadership of the Coronavirus Task Force and supporting polices was disastrous for the country. The go along to get along mentality (just politics) is not what is needed.