Meet President Pence
Donald Trump’s extraordinary political odyssey took another twist last week as further revelations of his conduct emerged from testimony given by former close associates. How this will affect Mr Trump’s future is impossible to predict. His rise to the Presidency was so improbable, his victory so unexpected, and his conduct so unconventional, that it defies conventional analysis. He may see out his current term of office, he may win a second term, or he may not. There is an assumption on the part of some of his critics that political gravity cannot be defied for ever and that normal service will be resumed at some point. Maybe, but the course of human affairs is not inevitable.
At Trump’s right hand, however, stands the Vice President, Mike Pence, who has for better or for ill, tied his fate to that of his unpredictable boss. If Trump falls, under the US system Pence becomes president.
In most obvious respects the 48th Vice President is as unlike Donald Trump as it is possible to be. He is an experienced public office holder and politician, having served as Governor of his home state, Indiana, and for twelve years as a Congressman. He has developed a distinct political identity and ideological position. He has taken decisions and implemented them, and taken responsibility.
A lawyer by training and profession, Pence is a practising evangelical Christian and is married – once and he has stuck with his wife, Karen Pence, a teacher and painter. His positions on issues are frequently hard line conservative. Where Mr Trump often flip-flops about Mr Pence is consistent. On occasion Mr Pence has let his disgust at Mr Trump’s behaviour become public, but on the whole he has been a loyal and silent running-mate and Presidential deputy.
The two men do have at least three things in common. They both made a name for themselves as television presenters. They both are ardent tax cutters – as Governor Pence enacted a huge state wide tax cut and he fervently supported Trump’s flagship tax cutting platform. And both men want to be President above all else. Trump has been actively tilting at the political top spot for decades. His route to the Oval office may have been unconventional but the intent has always been there. Pence may be taking a much more traditional route to the White House, but he is currently demonstrating the same patience and stamina now as he has throughout his political career.
It is possible Trump is impeached and Pence succeeds, as Gerald Ford did after Richard Nixon’s resignation. Impeachment though is a divisive political process as we saw with Bill Clinton. If Pence succeeded to the Presidency in this way he would immediately face the same dilemma as Ford – to pardon or not to pardon his predecessor. Either way it would hang over his Presidency. Mr Trump is not the philosophical sort and he would be unlikely to leave office quietly. If Trump fights a second election he might drop Pence from the ticket and look for a new Vice Presidential candidate to run with him for a second term. If Trump survives two terms Pence must, if he is still there, be a frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
However events play out in the White House, Mike Pence is tied to Donald Trump. When his turn came to run for the Presidency the then Vice President Al Gore did all he could to distance himself from President Bill Clinton, believing close association with Clinton would harm him at the ballot box. This backfired. Voters had been unimpressed with the partisanship and bitterness the impeachment process had unleashed, but Clinton rode high in the polls and voters seemed to discount his personal behaviour. Gore denied himself Clinton’s help and key Democrat voters did not like the implied disloyalty. The mistake contributed to his narrow defeat to George Bush in 2000. Although Trump is a divisive figure, a highly partisan impeachment process could have unintended consequences and increase his popularity.
For now Pence is carefully trying to navigate how to respond to Donald Trump’s bizarre conduct in office. He is faced with an even trickier path to tread as he discerns how closely he places himself next to his boss. But either way, through Trump falling, or succeeding a Trump that goes the full distance, the ultra-conservative evangelical Mike Pence is a highly experienced operator determined to become President.