MIKE PENCE: INDIANA STATE HOUSE OR THE WHITE HOUSE?
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When conservative activist and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer scans the potential 2012 Republican field, not much excites him. “All the obvious frontline names have all the usual pluses and minuses,” Mr. Bauer says.
But in considering one candidate, Mr. Bauer sees only qualities that he likes. Indiana Rep. Mike Pence is a military and fiscal hawk who frequently plugs his Christian credentials. To some, he’s the potential candidate best able to unite two wings of the Republican Party—its fiscal conservatives and social conservatives.
“He is definitely the guy to watch,” says Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, a group that opposes gay marriage and abortion.
Now, Mr. Pence has a decision to make: While he says he is seriously weighing a run for the White House, many signs point to him running for Indiana governor in 2012 instead. No one else mulling a presidential run faces a similar quandary. Mr. Pence says he plans to announce his decision early next year.
“I’d put money on him running for governor over president, because the field is a lot smaller and he wouldn’t be running against an incumbent,” says Indiana’s recently retired GOP chairman, Murray Clark.
Mr. Pence usually draws under 5% in voter surveys testing the emerging 2012 field. But the excitement he’s stirred among a swath of conservatives—he won a straw poll at the prominent Values Voter Summit in September—points both to the fluidity of the 2012 lineup and the dearth of names rousing interest among the religious right, a dependable GOP voting bloc.
Mr. Bauer believes that if Mr. Pence ran, he would quickly build support among socially conservative voters. “The nomination battle would be very wide open without Mike,” Mr. Bauer says, who is one of several activists urging Mr. Pence to join the nomination fight.
A former radio personality, the 51-year-old Mr. Pence became a darling among fiscal conservatives for opposing two of President George W. Bush’s signature initiatives, the 2001 No Child Left Behind education act and the 2003 Medicare Part D drug benefit. He saw both as violating his party’s small-government principles.
Mr. Pence favors reducing the size of the federal government, and even the power of the presidency. He wants to amend the Constitution both to ban abortions and to allow marriage only between men and women. He says increased security along the Mexican border must precede any immigration overhaul.
Mr. Pence was also among the first congressmen to jump on the tea-party wave in early 2009, speaking at rallies across Indiana and in Washington.
It was his speech at the Values Voter Summit, a marquee annual event among social conservative groups, which did the most to rouse support. The speech, with its calls to ban all federal abortion funding and stem-cell research, drew standing ovations and chants of “President Pence.”
When summit attendees cast ballots in a straw poll for president, Mr. Pence came in first, ahead of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and others.
For many conservatives, Mr. Pence holds much the same allure that Mr. Huckabee did in the 2008 campaign. Mr. Huckabee tapped into support from home-schoolers and evangelicals to pull off a surprise win in the Iowa caucus, though could never catch Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), the eventual nominee.
“The big question with Huckabee is whether he can raise enough money to be a real contender in 2012,” says Tom Minnery, head of public policy for Focus on the Family. As a fresher face, he says, Mr. Pence “is someone who could generate a lot of enthusiasm” in Iowa and other early nominating states and possibly show more durability in the long presidential campaign.
The Indiana lawmaker, who first won election to Congress in 2000, also has the backing of budget hawks such as Chris Chocola, a former Indiana congressman who is now president of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth. “Mike has the retail appeal of Huckabee but is an across-the-board conservative with all the credentials. There is no one else like that,” says Mr. Chocola.
Feeding speculation about his presidential ambitions, Mr. Pence has visited Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in the past year, all states with early roles in the nominating process. And yet Mr. Pence and others in his camp continue to drop hints that he’s shying from a White House run. The thought of a presidential campaign, Mr. Pence said in an interview, “is more humbling than tempting.”He says he’s weary of Washington. “I prefer the Flat Rock River to the Potomac River, and the Flat Rock is about a half a block from my house,” he said.
Associates in Indiana say the governor’s race fits him best, and would position him for a potential future shot at the White House. James Garfield, 130 years ago, was the only man ever elected president straight from a House seat.
“Mike once told me that it’s sometimes better to shoot free throws than take half-court shots. I think that logic applies to him here, as well,” said Luke Messer, a former Indiana GOP chairman.
The current Indiana governor, Republican Mitch Daniels, is term-limited in 2012 and said to be eyeing a presidential campaign himself.
Mr. Pence has long been considered a potential replacement, and his path to the governor’s office has only grown easier after Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman, a Republican, and Sen. Evan Bayh (D., Ind.) announced earlier this month that they would not run for the job.
Mr. Pence had already crisscrossed Indiana this year in support of local Republicans, contributing over $84,000 to their campaigns and attending 30 events for state legislative candidates.
Recently, as many House members flew back into Washington for the last days of the congressional session, Mr. Pence was still back home, filling in as a Salvation Army bell-ringer outside the Hobby Lobby in Anderson, Ind.
“It was good for my soul,” he said.
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