There was an old saying about just how America regards its vice presidents.
“There were two brothers. One ran off to go to sea and the other became vice president. Neither was ever heard from again.”
Then there was an evaluation of the job from John Nance Garner, a man who held it for eight years.
“The vice presidency isn’t worth a bucket of warm piss.”
History records the Garner quote as being “warm spit,” but Garner was an outspoken Texas and this is what many say he actually said.
When George Herbert Walker Bush successfully ran for president in 1988, he was the first vice president to be elected president at the end of his term as VP since Martin Van Buren in 1836. The only vice presidents in that 152-year span to become president were John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford.
Except for Ford, the other seven became president when the men they served died in office. Ford became president when Richard Nixon resigned. Two others left the vice presidency and then ran for president in later elections, the aforementioned Nixon and current president Joe Biden.
Far more vice presidents have been figures of fun, such as Dan Quayle for being unable to spell potato.
Which brings us to a vice president trying to follow Bush and Biden, Quayle’s fellow Hoosier, Mike Pence.
What are the first three things that come to mind when you think of Pence?
Admittedly, I just gave you one of them with the photo from the 2020 vice presidential debate.
- THE FLY — Midway through Pence’s debate with then-Senator Kamala Harris, a fly landed on his head. That in itself wouldn’t be a big deal, but an ordinary person might sense the presence of the insect and shoo it away with a hand gesture. Pence not only didn’t so that, he didn’t even move his head enough that the fly would react and leave its perch. In fact, he later said he hadn’t even realized there had been a fly on his head.
- “MOTHER PENCE” — All right, tell me off the top of your head (inadvertent fly reference) the first name of the former vice president’s wife. I don’t know about you, but it took me 10 or 15 seconds to think of it, and then I had to check to make sure I was right. It’s Karen, which is sort of unfortunate in itself with all the talk about “Karens” these days. That isn’t her fault, though. But the first name that came mind for me — and I’ll bet for some of you as well — was Mother. That’s how Pence refers to his wife, as Mother Pence.
- “HANG MIKE PENCE” — I can certainly understand if this was the first thing that came to mind, because Pence’s boss clearly threw him to the wolves on January 6th, 2010. The rioters at the Capitol to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president clearly wanted Vice President Pence to do what Donald Trump wanted. Barring that, they were read to lynch him.
To be fair, there would clearly be a fourth thing and this one would be in Pence’s favor.
He said no to Trump. He refused to participate in Trump’s plot to steal the election and remain in office. Clearly that’s a big deal, and considering the number of Trump worshippers in the Republican Party, it’s the reason Pence has no business running for the Republican nomination for president.
In fact, Trump’s indictment Tuesday might be been the final nail in Pence’s political coffin. Pence’s own notes were cited by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, in particular a conversation Trump and his vice president had five days before the riots. Trump was demanding that Pence help with a lawsuit trying to block certification.
Pence said he had no authority to do that, and Trump said the three most damning words one Republican can say to another.
“You’re too honest.”
That’s why Pence will never be more than a vice president.
He’s too honest to be a Republican.