Andy Downs laughed and quoted “Ghostbusters.”
When asked about the consequences Indiana faces if its governor, Mike Pence, runs for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Downs — director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics in Fort Wayne — jokingly referred to the classic 1984 comedy. The Ghostbuster played by Bill Murray describes an imminent paranormal disaster to New York’s mayor as “dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.”
Seriously, the Hoosier state could experience some unusual moments if its chief executive formally seeks to become the nation’s chief executive. Indiana typically functions outside the American spotlight, and quite contentedly so. If Pence runs, the national media and political-action committees would intensely scrutinize him, his gubernatorial track record and the state. A presidential bid can be all-consuming for not only the participants, but those around them.
So, it’s not irrational for Hoosiers to wonder whether home-state issues would be neglected while the sitting governor prepares for debates, travels to swing states, formulates foreign policy stances, gives speeches and does damage-control for any controversial comments that may slip out.
Pence hasn’t officially declared himself a candidate for the Oval Office, insisting he’s merely “listening” to people urging him to do so. Yet, he’s trekked from Michigan to Texas and overseas. On a visit last month to a conservative gathering in Dallas organized by the Americans for Prosperity (a right-wing PAC connected to the influential, billionaire Koch brothers), Pence told a Republican audience, “Some people say our next nominee should be a governor, and I’m certainly sympathetic to that,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
On Monday, Pence visits Iowa to support the re-election of Republican Gov. Terry Branstad.
Will he or won’t he?
Coincidentally, Iowa also hosts the first presidential selection event — the Iowa caucus in January 2016. Strange, isn’t it?
The hints of his presidential ambitions are overt, yet cautious — for now. A seeker of that office can’t be ambivalent.
“You don’t run for president if you don’t want to win,” Downs said by phone Tuesday from the IPFW University campus. “You don’t run for president if you don’t expect to win. You don’t just dip your toe into it.” Pence already faces low-volume criticism that his preliminary presidential trips and gestures affect his governing of Indiana. How would he multi-task between a full-fledged Pence for President campaign and his governorship? Recent history shows some governors have pulled off that balancing act, namely Bill Clinton in Arkansas and George W. Bush in Texas. Their stories don’t perfectly dovetail with Pence’s, though.
Clinton had served 10 years, and one earlier term, as governor before being elected president in 1992. Bush had just won a re-election landslide before his White House victory in 2000. Pence won the Indiana governor’s seat by a slim, 3-percentage point margin just 22 months ago. Skeptics, and political rivals, could legitimately claim his track record in that job is thin and that credit for Pence’s national billing as the chief steward of a tax-reducing state with a budget surplus should largely be given to the Republican- dominated Indiana General Assembly and the previous governor, Mitch Daniels.
Still, Pence benefits from that perception and has committed no missteps to diminish it. Thus, concerns may be unfounded that Pence may need to pack his legislative agendas as governor for 2015 and 2016 with policies aimed to bolster his national appeal. “In many respects, he already has what he needs,” Downs said.
That list involve tax cuts, reduced state spending, education reform and private- school vouchers. Of course, the bulk of those steps pre-date Pence’s term. The actions bearing his fingerprints most prominently — pulling Indiana out of the Common Core State Standards, and his “alternative” to the Affordable Care Act in expanding Medicaid — managed to irritate opponents and conservatives, the latter of which saw those tactics as window-dressed, politically safe maneuvers contrary to his right-wing roots.
“He can make an argument for the deviation to either side. They may argue with it, but he can make that case and then move on to a more core issue,” Downs said. “He played it pretty well.” Unlike Bush and Clinton, a number of sitting governors who ran for president (or vice president) said or did things on the campaign trail that didn’t play well to their home-state constituents. Some behaved differently with all of America watching. Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty, Michael Dukakis and Jerry Brown saw their high approval ratings back home sink in the wake of their unsuccessful presidential bids, as a 2012 report in Governing Magazine explained.
They subject their governorship and state to political risks. In the 21st century, candidates are routinely videotaped almost around-theclock by rivals, hoping they’ll say something foolish or offensive.
“Even the smoothest politician has to be careful,” said Matt Bergbower, assistant professor of political science at Indiana State University.
The publicity is vast. “Of course, you get media attention, and with that you get the good with the bad, for Mike Pence,” Bergbower said. “You get that exposure of your history.”
Experiencing such microscopic analysis might be the most unusual twist for Pence — despite his previous years in Washington as a congressman — and Hoosiers, whose most recent memories of an Indiana native seeking a White House post are linked to Dan Quayle’s rocky runs for the vice presidency in 1988 and ‘92.
Maybe Pence should seek Quayle’s advice, if he hasn’t already.
Otherwise, who you gonna call?
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