For better or for worse, modern politicians are the equivalent of celebrities. We see them constantly appear on TV and their soundbites dominate the social media landscape. Because of that, politicians are like celebs in another crucial way: it’s easy for the rest of us to think we know who they really are behind closed doors.
That’s not always the case, and some politicians are capable of taking us completely by surprise. Perhaps the best example of this is Mike Pence, Donald Trump’s former Vice President who famously didn’t side with Trump during the 2020 election. As a result, some of those who attacked America’s capitol went so far as to create an effigy of Pence in order to show how much they wanted to kill him!
In other words, the man went from being Trump’s biggest supporter to his biggest enemy. That made us wonder…what’s Mike Pence really like? If you’re curious, we’ve got you covered. Keep reading to discover everything you need to know!
Mike Pence was once a Democrat
While Mike Pence isn’t Trump’s biggest fan right now (and vice versa), he is still famous for being a very conservative Republican. Because of that, one fact about Pence that usually blows people’s minds is that he was once a Democrat! This all started when he was inspired by the career of John F. Kennedy, and a young Pence later became the youth coordinator for the Bartholomew County Democratic Party.
If that’s not enough, Pence actually voted for Carter rather than Reagan during his senior year of high school. All of this is very different from the Pence that people know and love (or perhaps know and loathe), but it didn’t take long for him to embrace the purely conservative politics that would shape the rest of his life.
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Pence’s early political career was a hot mess
You might think that someone who became Vice President must have had a solid political career from the very beginning. This wasn’t the case for Mike Pence, though, who tried to run for Congress at the age of 29 and lost. When he tried to run again, he used campaign money to pay for personal expenses ranging from his mortgage to his wife’s car. This wasn’t illegal at the time, but it generally made him look bad to his donors.
What made him look even worse, though, was a political ad he commissioned in which a hired actor dressed in the garb of an Arab sheik to thank Pence’s opponent for being in the pocket of foreign oil. It really turned off a lot of people who would otherwise support Pence, and in 1991, he wrote an essay (“Confessions of a Negative Campaigner”) in which he admitted that “Negative campaigning…is wrong.”
He’s really good at impersonations
Depending on your politics, you might not be in a hurry to invite Mike Pence to a party anytime soon. If you did invite him, though, you might discover something very surprising: the man is reportedly great at doing impersonations of famous people!
Just who does he impersonate, though? Reportedly, Pence is great at impersonating former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He also does a great impersonation of the late, influential conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. The Limbaugh impersonation is particularly intriguing because Pence was once a conservative radio host who went by “His Mikeness” and branded himself “Rush Limbaugh on decaf.”
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Pence almost became a priest
Shocked to hear that Mike Pence was once a radio host instead of a politician? If so, you may be fascinated to hear that he once considered an even crazier possible career. You see, once upon a time, Pence almost became a priest. In fact, this was something the future Vice President strongly considered a life of religious service to the Catholic Church.
What happened, then? At some point, Pence made the arguably wiser decision to go to law school instead. This wasn’t a completely smooth process…he actually had to take the LSAT twice before he could get into the law school at Indiana University. He ended up hating the experience, but it’s fair to say going to law school completely changed the trajectory of his later life as he finally found success in politics.
He used his political position to celebrate Garfield’s birthday
When Mike Pence finally did have an influential political position, he occasionally got pretty weird with it. While serving as the congressional representative to Indiana, he decided to give a speech on the House floor to celebrate Garfield’s birthday. At this point, you might assume that we’re talking about President Richard Garfield…sadly, that is not the case!
Instead, Pence decided to celebrate Garfield, the fat cartoon comic strip cat created by Jim Davis. It was a weird choice for a politician who has done many strange things in his life. But we kind of love it, and this incident cements that nobody save his wife (who he strangely calls “Mother”) may know who Mike Pence really is.
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