In 2010, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives. One of the Republicans re-elected that year was Mike Pence, for a sixth term. During his campaign, Pence gave major speeches about the presidency and the Constitution, a key point of which was that President Obama was a poor president and that the country needed a new one.
I interviewed Pence about his views on the presidency and Obama’s exercise of the office for an article I wrote for the magazine late in 2010—which we have posted now that the presumptive nominee Donald Trump has picked Pence as his running mate.
Looking again at that piece today, I am struck by Pence’s criticism of Obama for having appeared on so many media programs, including even America’s Most Wanted, as to become a “ubiquitous figure in the popular culture.” For Pence, ubiquity of this sort is not good for the presidency or the country. A president, he said in one his speeches, should “know when to withdraw, to hold back, and to forgo attention, publicity, or advantage.” For Pence, the presidency is best served by someone who refuses to see it—or himself—as the center of American life, and who instead takes a “half step back” and lets “America be the lead story.”
Trump spent years becoming “a ubiquitous figure in the popular culture.” If he were elected, would he “forgo attention, publicity or advantage” and let America be “the lead story”? Or would he be so full of himself as to drive his vice president crazy?
So did Pence in 2010 frame a question that voters will have to mull as Election Day draws near.
