The Shadow President

by Michael D'Antonio

  In retrospect, the intern would say that Pence might have been attempting some humor. Why else would he risk sounding like a bridesmaid musing about just how her wedding would go? Also, this episode happened in 2010, and at that time, the congressman from Indiana was just one of 435 members of the House of Representatives. Add a hundred United States senators, fifty governors, and countless other famous leaders and debate club champions, and he was just another person who dreamed of becoming president. What reasonable chance did he have of actually seeing his fantasy come true?

  Actually, Pence’s chances were better than the casual observer could imagine. Two years before he daydreamed aloud about his future inauguration, Esquire magazine had included him among its “ten best” members of Congress. The generally liberal magazine liked Mike because he was a conservative who didn’t come across as hard-edged and because he was against the practice of “earmarking,” which members of Congress had long used to send federal money home for specific purposes. Before it was canceled, the most infamous earmark in history would have sent almost $400 million to Alaska to build a bridge—dubbed the Bridge to Nowhere—to an island with about fifty inhabitants.

  Esquire also liked Pence because he had once struck a humane tone on the matter of undocumented immigrants, mostly Latin Americans, who had put down roots in the United States. Pence addressed the issue in June 2006 at the Heritage Foundation, one of the primary conservative advocacy groups in the country. Contemplating the immigrants hiding from authorities, Pence declared that “mass deportation is a nonstarter” because “it is not logistically possible to round up twelve million illegal aliens.” He proposed offering incentives for “really good people” who left voluntarily for as little as one week to return legally after applying at centers established in their home countries. Granted temporary work permits, the immigrants would eventually become eligible for more permanent status.

  Similar to a proposal made by President George W. Bush, the plan outlined by Pence would have ended a debate over immigration that had begun almost as soon as Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which granted legal status to millions of people. Reagan had acted out of humanitarian concern and in response to businesspeople who relied on the immigrants for labor in agriculture, construction, and other industries. In the ensuing years, America had grown even more dependent on the labor provided by undocumented workers, so when Pence spoke up, he expressed a position that was favored by the farmers and business managers who were among his most ardent backers at home.

  However, Pence’s immigration stance provoked the anger of those Republicans who were hardliners on the issue. Former Nixon speechwriter and onetime presidential candidate Pat Buchanan lacerated Pence in a column published by the conservative weekly Human Events.

  A well-practiced fulminator who had reached his sarcastic prime, Buchanan likened Pence to the character Tessio in The Godfather, who betrayed the Corleone family. While using words such as fraudulent and capitulation, Buchanan wrote, “What makes the Pence plan insidious is that Mike Pence has an unimpeachable pedigree.” He concluded that Pence was swayed by “the White House, the ethnic lobbies, the Big Media, mainstream churches, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the ‘conservative’ front groups and foundations they finance, and corporate contributors to congressmen who fear law enforcement.” (Five years earlier, Buchanan had announced, in a book called The Death of the West, that immigration and the decline of white birth rates constituted a threat to the survival of American and European societies. “The pill and condom have become the hammer and sickle of the cultural revolution,” he wrote, adding, “Western women are terminating their pregnancies at a rate that represents autogenocide for peoples of European ancestry.”)1

  The remarkable thing about Buchanan’s list was that it represented a huge swath of American society, from the Chamber of Commerce to churches to corporations to organizations representing Hispanics. If Pence was courting these groups with his immigration position, it may have been a wise choice, as they represented a great many votes and potential campaign donations. At the same time, Indiana was not substantially affected by undocumented immigrants. The best estimates suggested that between fifty-five thousand and eighty-five thousand undocumented people, including children and the unemployed, lived in Indiana. The small number meant that their effect on jobs, ages, and government services was quite minor, and the issue did not matter much to rank-and-file voters in Indiana. For them, especially those who were part of Pence’s Republican base, it was far more important that he preserve his bona fides on issues like abortion and to associate himself with figures whom they respected and admired.2

  * * *

  Abortion was the topic that welded many evangelical Christians to the Republican Party, and over the years, their importance as a voting bloc had in turn pushed the GOP to adopt opposition to abortion rights as a central tenet. (This despite the fact that significant numbers of Republicans identify as pro-choice.) Among Pence’s early speeches on the House floor was a statement called “The Case for Life,” which was a meandering tour of world history from an antiabortion point of view. It included approving references to John Quincy Adams and Cicero, who “actually placed it beyond doubt that the offense of abortion was a capital offense punishable even by death.” In addition to the history, the speech was a complete amalgam of talking points from the antichoice movement, including a callout to the Holocaust with his side of the debate on the role of Oskar Schindler, who saved Jews from the Nazis. He also sounded an alarm about “post-abortion stress syndrome,” which he claimed was seen by “psychologists across America” but was not recognized as an actual pathology by either medical or mental health experts.3

  Like his claim about the supposed post-abortion syndrome, much of what Pence argued in his abortion speech, and elsewhere, was drawn from the subculture of Christian Right authorities and could not withstand factual analysis. However, on the floor of the House of Representatives, he was free to say what he liked, and it became part of the Congressional Record. This process resembled his experience on talk radio, where, for hours every day, he was permitted to say pretty much anything, and except on rare occasions, it went unchallenged.

  Radio was Pence’s medium and as soon as he had arrived in Washington, he made sure he would maintain some presence on the airwaves back home. With $3,000 from the budget he got to outfit his office, he bought a desk, headphones, a special microphone, and other equipment to establish a broadcast-quality radio studio in a hallway next to the washroom. Within weeks, he was appearing every Monday on the show hosted by his replacement on the Indiana Network, a lawyer named Greg Garrison. On Wednesdays, he called in to stations in Anderson and Columbus, and on occasion, he subbed for weekend hosts at outlets around the state. He also used this little setup to fill in for nationally syndicated radio host Oliver North.

  North was a combat veteran and thus even more respected among culture warriors who admired his machismo and bravado. He had been a central figure in the Reagan-era Iran-Contra Scandal, for which he was fired by the president. He was convicted of three felonies, but the convictions were overturned when a judge found his trial could have been tainted by prior testimony he gave to Congress, for which he had received a promise of immunity from prosecution. A pariah to those who saw him as a rogue officer who broke the law, North was regarded as a defiant hero by many on the hyperpartisan Right. As Pence became his occasional substitute, he made himself known to a national audience of listeners who enjoyed North’s pugnacious style. Although Pence would never match the temperament that moved North to, for example, call the Clinton administration “white trash,” some of the tough-guy aura attached to him merely because he hosted the show. For a politician with a milquetoast image, it was a valuable bit of spice.

  The association with North affirmed for fierce conservatives, especially those back home, that Pence was someone whom they could trust. (Pence’s long friendship with Watergate felon turned
evangelist Chuck Colson served a similar purpose.) At the same time, people who were put off by Oliver North weren’t likely to ever listen to the program and discover their congressman playing substitute host.

  In the mainstream press and in his public appearances, Pence built an identity as the straightest arrow in Congress, a man so concerned about propriety that he told the newspaper The Hill that without his wife by his side, he wouldn’t attend an event where alcohol was served or sit down to a meal with a woman. He said these practices were about avoiding even suspicions of impropriety, adding that he kept in mind the “little old ladies [who] come and say, ‘Honey, whatever you need to do, keep your family together.’” This comment, and Pence’s effort to isolate himself, recalled the ancient Christian regard for women as occasions of sin. This notion, and the matching idea that men are ever poised on the edge of perdition, energizes the sexism that has forever constrained the lives of women and advanced the power of men. In Pence’s case, he was signaling to his religiously oriented supporters that he lived in this world but was not of it, and if he could return society to a past when men and women remained in their separate spheres, he would.4

  The puritanism Pence practiced in his personal life was matched by the watchdog role he chose when it came to his peers. He frequently complained about the GOP’s supposed drift away from what he deemed to be its core principles of small government, low taxes, and Christian Right social values. Inside the party caucus, House members waged a continual contest over which items their leaders would push. In this internal fight, Pence chose to stand with a small but loud group that claimed to represent the principled core of the party and attacked those who cooperated with moderates and liberals. He also promoted the interest of major political donors who opposed limits on the money they could pour into candidates’ campaigns.

  Campaign spending had begun a steady rise in the mid-1980s, far outpacing inflation, and would soon exceed the rate of growth in health care costs, which was considered a national crisis. By 2000, winning House candidates spent about $1 million to get their jobs, which was almost three times the figure for 1990. Common sense would hold that the candidates who raise and spend the most money are more likely to win and that donors give in order to gain some benefit, whether it is a representative who votes for their interests or will listen when they call.

  Political scientists had found that having more money is only a slight advantage in campaigns. (They also confirmed that donors do get attention from politicians.) However, even those who conducted empirical research noted that the psychological effects of fund-raising were greater. “The belief that money is the key to electoral success is almost as damaging as a scenario in which money really does matter,” wrote Steven Levitt in 1994. “As long as conventional wisdom views money as critical, the pattern of behavior that has led to widespread criticism will prevail.”5

  The practices that concerned Levitt included all the phone calls, meetings, and travel that House members devoted to raising money, which was amassed in part to intimidate foes. Although senators and representatives generally complained about the duty, it was an accepted part of the job. Like many of his colleagues, Pence made raising campaign funds a regular occupation, even in odd-numbered years when no actual election would be conducted. After winning in 2000, he would raise more than $1 million every year to defeat opponents who ran with ever smaller budgets. In 2010, he would accumulate more than $2.7 million to defeat a rival who reported collecting only 115 dollars. Besides his own campaigns, Pence raised money for his own political action committee (PAC), which then gave money to other Republicans. Borrowing from a Bible verse, this so-called “leadership PAC” was called Principles Exalt a Nation. Essentially a funnel, it took money from the usual Pence donors, including the Kochs, Club for Growth, Cummins, and Erik Prince, and delivered it to politicians, including Christian Right champions such as Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.6

  Leadership PACs facilitated the flow of money among politicians who could turn indebted colleagues into allies by funding their election efforts. They also helped donors get around the limits on giving imposed by campaign finance laws. Intended to give the public some sense of how politicians raised money and to limit the appearance of impropriety, these regulations irritated Pence, who was a gifted fund-raiser. In 2002, Pence put his name on a Supreme Court lawsuit filed in response to campaign finance limits proposed by Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Russ Feingold, a Democrat from Wisconsin. The lead complainant was then Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who would become famous for teaching that the three keys to politics are “money, money, money.” The argument, which he and Pence would make, was that money was the equivalent of speech and that the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution barred limits on its use to advance candidates. On the first Monday in September 2003, Pence sat in the court to observe the arguments in a case that his side lost. However, he had signaled where he stood.7

  As Pence picked his spots on issues and occasionally seized the chance to get ahead of like-minded conservatives, he distinguished himself from others who entered the House in January 2001. Just three years after he arrived in Washington, he got the prized opening-remarks slot at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. (Among the other speakers at CPAC were white supremacist Richard Spencer and Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association.) Pence, whose talk was preserved on the CPAC website, began his remarks with imagery he borrowed (uncredited) from Ronald Reagan:

  Picture a ship at sea. A proud captain steps onto the sunlit deck as it plies the open seas of a simpler time. Its sails full and straining in the wind, its crew is tried and true, its hull, mast, and keel are strong, but beneath the waves, almost imperceptibly, the rudder has veered off course and, in time, the captain and crew will face unexpected peril. The conservative movement today is like that ship with its proud captain, strong, accomplished, but veering off course into the dangerous and uncharted waters of big-government Republicanism.

  According to Pence, expediency had found members of the party embracing programs to solve problems they should stay away from and using tax dollars to fund them. Pence preferred the ethos of the GOP circa 1995, which was led by fire-breathing Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who pushed hard for cuts in federal programs to benefit the poor.

  “When I was finally elected in 2000, it was like I had been frozen before the revolution and thawed after it was over. When I first ran, Republicans dreamed of eliminating the Department of Education and returning control of our schools to parents, communities, and states. Ten years later, I was thawed out, took my oath of office, and they handed me a copy of H.R.1. One as in our Republican Congress’ number-one priority. It was the No Child Left Behind Act.”

  Intended to benefit kids in poorly performing public schools, the act was proposed by GOP president George Bush and supported by Republican leaders in Congress. It required that states create standards that would have to be met if schools were to get federal funding. The accountability imposed by the act and its focus on basic education were considered conservative policies, and in the first few years, it was credited with raising test scores. However, Pence objected to the spending attached to the bill and voted against it. His side lost.

  In the subsequent Congress, after he easily won reelection over Melina Fox, a farmer who had not run for office before, Pence was confronted by a second H.R.1. This one gave senior citizens receiving Medicare a big new benefit for prescription medicines. “To the frozen man,” recalled Pence, “it was obvious: another Congress, another H.R.1, another example of the ship of our movement veering off course.” Pence described Republicans who opposed this Bush plan as “twenty-five rebels [who] made a stand for limited government. When all the votes were counted, we were one rebel short, and the ship of conservative government veered further off course.”

  Mixing his military metaphors, Pence briefly evoked the Alamo as he recalled his fellow H.R.1 opponents and
then went back to sea—and described a possible mutiny—for the big finish to his talk. He said:

  When a ship is approaching a rocky coast, the life of the ship and its crew depends on the navigator with his sextant to counsel the captain and crew to steer clear of the shoals and, if need be, to forcefully oppose the captain when the fate of the ship hangs in the balance. This is our cause. To stand with our captain as he leads us well. And to right the ship where she is adrift.8

  A politician who identified himself as a conservative before he was a Republican, Pence put his ideology above his party, his GOP colleagues, and the president. In this way, he stood against the tradition of politics and compromise that marked the entire history of a body charged with serving a vast and diverse nation. Pence affirmed this view by joining the Republican Study Committee (RSC), which was one of many groups with bland names but extreme goals founded in the 1970s by Christian Right activist Paul Weyrich. (Others included the Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the Krieble Institute, which focused on politics in Russia and Ukraine.) Weyrich was among the first to woo wealthy benefactors to the work of building conservative institutions. Mike Pence considered him a mentor and a close friend.

  Weyrich believed that God gave Christians dominion over the earth and that this meant they had been chosen to govern according to their beliefs. He also understood this was a minority view and it might not go over well with an electorate composed of people of many faiths, no faith, and broadly held concern for the separation of church and state. For this reason, he famously complained that “many of our Christians have what I call the ‘goo-goo syndrome.’ Good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”9