Loyal to the president, the Midwestern politician has been at work in the background.
Vice President Mike Pence, set to take the stage Wednesday night in a debate against Senator Kamala Harris, has largely been a background figure in the national discussion over Donald Trump’s presidency. But that may be more about his style than his substance.
Pence played a pivotal role in the administration’s first legislative victory, working out the deal that got the fighting factions of Republicans in the House and the White House to agree to pass the American Health Care Act, which would partially repeal and replace Obamacare.
Then, at the last moment, he had a condition of his own. The “Pence Amendment”—an idea he’d proposed for state-based waivers—couldn’t be called that. He didn’t want to take any credit. Tim Alberta, the conservative political reporter for National Review and Politico, sees this as a quintessential Mike Pence moment.
“The vice president’s persona—the wholesome, aw-shucks, milk-drinking Midwesterner—masks the skill set of a savvy political operator,” Alberta wrote. The former governor of Indiana will “get the job done, and avoid all acclaim in the process.”
Pence is “the 24-karat-gold model” of what politically conservative evangelicals want in a politician, according to Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in North Carolina and former head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
“I don’t know anyone who’s more consistent in bringing his evangelical-Christian worldview to public policy,” Land said in 2018.
Pence was raised Catholic and had a born-again experience as a freshman in college, making a personal ...
from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/34AeFsT
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