Pence casts himself as un-Trump, but pro-Trump
CLEVELAND — In the most important speech of his political life, Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence introduced himself to voters late Wednesday as a man holding to impeccable conservative credentials, risen from modest all-American roots, married three decades to the love of his life, and possessing a sense of humor about himself. In other words, Donald Trump’s most important advocate cast himself as the anti-Trump.
After days of Republican calls to toss Hillary Clinton in prison, or maybe shoot her dead, of entertainers who addressed delegates from the podium in the Quicken Loans Arena and declared minutes later, with absurd certainty, that President Obama is secretly a Muslim, Pence’s speech was perhaps most remarkable for how fundamentally conventional it was. Its down-to-earth qualities were thrown into relief after the night’s most theatrical moment — a surprise entrance by Trump during the speech by Sen. Ted Cruz, upon which the entire crowd literally turned its back on the Texas lawmaker, moments after furiously jeering at his refusal to endorse the nominee.
“I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order,” Pence said, using a refrain he has repeated throughout decades of life in politics.
The Indiana governor, officially picked as Trump’s running mate on Friday, jokingly but deliberately cast himself as the brash entrepreneur’s boring policy sidekick.
“He’s a man known for a larger personality, a colorful style and lots of charisma,” Pence said. “And so, I guess he was just looking for some balance on the ticket.”
He breezily acknowledged one of his biggest challenges — that many Americans simply don’t know who he is — with a quip that the speech was “for those of you who don’t know me, which is most of you.” He joked that his late father would “probably be pretty surprised” to see his son rise to such prominence.
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He sketched out an autobiography that evoked the setting of a smiling family on a farmhouse porch in small-town Indiana — implicitly presenting a stark contrast with his political traveling companion’s gilded New York lifestyle.
“When I was young, I watched my mom and dad build everything that matters: a family, a business and a good name. I was raised to believe in hard work, in faith and family,” Pence said.
“The best thing that ever happened to me, even counting tonight, was that 31 years ago, I married the girl of my dreams, a school teacher and artist. She is everything to me. Would you welcome my wonderful wife, Karen Pence,” he asked, shortly before declaring that “regardless of any title I’ll ever hold, the most important job I’ll ever have is spelled D-A-D.”
He went on to attack Hillary Clinton’s management of world affairs as Obama’s secretary of state. He accused her, as Republicans have accused Democrats for decades, of believing that government is a cure-all and of putting faith in an activist judiciary. He called Clinton the opposite of an “uncalculating truth-teller.” Inevitably, he raised the topic of the Benghazi attacks in 2012, Republicans’ shorthand for what they consider Clinton’s personal and professional failures, arguing that she had left the four Americans who died there “in harm’s way.” Erroneously, he suggested that she had dismissed their sacrifice with her now-infamous comment “What difference, at this point, does it make?” — a comment she actually made to address the question of whether the killers were terrorists carrying out a premeditated attack or had spontaneously decided “that they’d they go kill some Americans.”
Pence accused Clinton of supporting higher taxes and more regulation. If she were to win, he argued, the “secretary of the status quo” would essentially represent the equivalent of a third term for Obama. He recited the traditional Republican credo, calling for less government and more private sector. He attacked the news media. He invoked Ronald Reagan — not just as the president who converted him to Republicanism, but echoing Reagan’s words of support for the GOP firebrand Barry Goldwater, by referring to 2016 as a “time for choosing,” Reagan’s description of 1964.
It was a recitation of Republican orthodoxy, delivered without the familiar Trump bluster, and without embracing Trump’s most controversial policies, such as his call for a wall on the border with Mexico, or the carpet-bombing of cities held by the so-called Islamic State.
Pence undertook two other notable tasks: He reached out to Democrats and he worked to soften Trump’s image with voters who might only now be tuning in to a political contest defined by the former reality star’s boisterous and often coarse style.
Pence spoke to union members, coal miners, African-Americans and Hispanics, asking whether the Democratic Party had “taken them for granted.” Trump appears to have made inroads with blue-collar, rust-belt voters who oppose free trade, but has struggled mightily with Hispanics and, if public opinion polls are right, has less African-American support than any recent Republican nominee.
The Indiana governor repeatedly invited voters to consider Trump’s most controversial comments as the result of an excess of candor: for example, describing undocumented immigrants as rapists; insulting women and calling the judge presiding over a case against him biased, based simply on the fact that he is of Mexican heritage.
“Donald Trump gets it, he’s the genuine article. He’s a doer in a game usually reserved for talkers. And when Donald Trump does his talking, he doesn’t tiptoe around the thousand new rules of political correctness,” Pence said, to applause.
He delighted the crowd by suggesting that Clinton would soon feel the same sting that humbled Trump’s rivals in their many debates during the primary election.
“I’ll grant you, he can be a little rough with politicians on the stage — and I’ll bet we see that again,” Pence said, to laughter and cheers.
And Pence embraced the argument that prominent Republicans say may be Trump’s strongest.
“In the end, this election comes down to just two names on the ballot,” Pence said. “So let’s resolve here and now that Hillary Clinton will never become president of the United States of America.”
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