Written in 2018 for a University of Colorado course.
Upbringing can be an important influence on the character of any person, especially those that we look to for leadership. We want to know how someone will act in the face of adversity, how they will approach issues that we care about, and how they will approach their job as elected officials. The study of personality and socialization of politicians is worthwhile for a number of reasons but none more than to help us decide whether or not they will be good leaders, the kind we want to represent us. As a young boy in Columbus, Indiana, Mike Pence was shaped in a way that explains the person he is today. Pence’s journey from Catholic school in a small, Midwestern town to the vice presidency of the United States and the relationships he has had along the way have not only influenced his personality and character but also his ideology and his approach to political issues. Early experiences can be especially telling of how a person will end up later in life, Mike Pence is no exception. From his religious childhood to his success in public speaking even as a young man, it is clear that he was destined to be a leader. Personality and socialization are also both important indicators of character in adulthood. For Pence, socialization appears to be a more poignant influence of his character today. Finally, although Pence is not a president, he can still be categorized into one of Barber’s four presidential character typologies, which helps understand how he acts when presented with leadership.
Michael R. Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana to Edward and Nancy Pence. Pence was one of six children, four sons and two daughters. His parents were extremely involved in their children’s lives, often appearing “in tandem” to every event hosted by the school in order to support their children (The Republic, 2016). As a child, Mike was described as a “model student” by many who knew him, including his teachers in Catholic school, always having work completed and showing up on time. One of his classmates described him as “‘thoughtful [and] respectful,’” which is still seen in his demeanor today (Wines, 2016). As a child he was often very outgoing and excelled in public speaking (The Republic, 2016). By the time Pence was in high school he was “winning state and national awards with orations” (Wines, 2016). As an Irish family with immigrant parents and grandparents, the Pence’s actively practiced Catholicism and sent their children to St. Columba, a Catholic school in Columbus, where Mike was an altar boy (Wines, 2016). Although the Pence’s were not particularly political, they did idolize John F. Kennedy, which in turn led Mike to idolize him as well as one of his early political role models and identify as a Democrat in his years prior to law school (Indy Star, 2017). During his childhood in Columbus, there was a church on every street (Wines, 2016). Even now, the town is described as “‘family-oriented, religious, conservative community, very patriotic’” by a recent mayor of Columbus (Wines, 2016). Today, Mike Pence is the embodiment of those Midwestern values. He is polite, thoughtful, and predictable (Washington Post, 2016). He has continually stressed his commitment to traditional family values, in line with his evangelical Christian faith.
Over the years, Mike Pence has described himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order” (DeParle, 2006). Although we generally accept the differentiation between church and state in the United States, it is clear that Pence’s political stances decisions are influenced by his faith. In fact, he said in an interview that one of the things that pulled him toward the Republican party after being a Democrat for many years was the Democratic party’s stance on abortion. He felt that he could not continue to identify as a Democrat after joining the evangelical church at Hanover College, where he got a degree in history (DeParle, 2006). Pence’s wife, Karen, also went through the same “‘faith journey’” that he did in college, which appears to have strengthened their relationship, as they were able to relate to the journey each of them was going through (Mahler, 2016). He follows one of the most socially conservative and publicly religious ideologies of any politician in the United States. Putting his policy stances aside, I do think that religion plays a large role in Mike Pence’s approach to many political issues that he faces. Whether or not he succeeds in doing this, I think that Pence tries to live his life according to his faith, as born-again Christians tend to do. Re-affirming or re-committing oneself to a religion in adulthood is a much more conscious decision than being raised in accordance to a religion since birth, which Pence also was. For example, he has committed himself to campaigning without being negative towards opponents because he feels that it contradicts his Christian values. Pence regretted once using negative campaigning and later said, “‘a campaign ought to demonstrate the basic human decency of the candidate,’” admitting he was wrong for him to succumb to those techniques (Barbaro, 2016). He even wrote an essay after the fact titled, “Confessions of a Negative Campaigner,” denouncing his own behavior while running for office in the late 1990’s (Indy Star, 2017).
Although Mike Pence’s political life is shaped by his personality and his socialization, I believe that socialization has played more of a role in determining how he approaches politics. Pence has been described as thoughtful and predictable but also draws heavily on his participation in public speaking as a child and through the influence of his parents (Washington Post, 2016). It is clear that Mike Pence is truly a product of the environment he was raised in and further down the road, who he surrounded himself with in his early adult years. He has been described as “Midwestern polite,” something that can only be said of those who have spent most of their lives surrounded by the traditional roles and values that Pence found himself immersed in from birth (Washington Post, 2016). If he were to have grown up in a more urban setting, with a community that was more divergent from traditional values guiding him, I’m sure Mike Pence would have turned out much different than the person he is today. It’s a well-known fact that people who grow up and live in urban centers tend to be more liberal, partly because of the diverse environment they are exposed to. Mike Pence grew up in a town that was extremely homogenous, almost completely white (98 percent in 1970), and almost all of the same or similar faith (Wines, 2016). He grew up somewhere where “abortion and homosexuality were both scandal and mortal sin,” so it is no wonder that he has beliefs today that reflect that of the environment he was raised in (Wines, 2016). Had Columbus been one of the places at the time that was experiencing “race riots, war protests, free love and bra burnings,” there’s no doubt that we’d see a very different politician today (Wines, 2016).
In Barber’s “Presidential Character,” he creates four different typologies of presidents using the active/passive dimension and the positive/negative dimension. Based on Barber’s typology of presidential characteristics, Mike Pence can be categorized as “active-positive.” An active president is one that is energetic and wants to make big changes while in office, they put a lot of time into their job rather than delegating work. On the other hand, a passive president does just that, they delegate responsibility instead of assuming it all themselves and takes more of a steward position. Mike Pence has never been president so it is a little difficult to say how he would deal with all of the responsibilities of the office, but as a congressman, he was very involved in policy making that reflected his beliefs, such as signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2016 (Britannica, 2017). Pence was willing to make big changes during his time in office even if it wasn’t the most popular option, as we saw with the backlash to him signing the RFRA. He did what he thought was right based on his approach to politics in a very hands-on way. As president, it is likely that Pence would take a similar role, being more active in decision making and delegating less. On the other side of Barber’s dimension, Pence is categorized as “positive". A positive president is one who is optimistic and enthusiastic about their position, they really enjoy being president, or in Pence’s case, he really enjoys being a politician. He is not likely to be categorized as “negative", according to Barber, because he does not see being an elected official as a duty or obligation. Someone who views their job in this way would not likely spend over twenty years serving the public and continuing to pursue new leadership opportunities. Rather, Mike Pence is a “positive” politician. Since a young age, he has been interested in politics and comfortable in positions of leadership. After attending law school and practicing for a few years, he decided to run for office (ABC News, 2016). While serving as a Congressman, Pence served as “chairman of the House Republican conference and chairman of the Republican Study Committee” and ran for minority leader in the House in 2006 but lost to John Boehner (ABC News, 2016). Pence served as governor of Indiana also considered running for president in 2016, suggesting that he is a “positive” type because over the years, he has appeared to actively seek out new leadership roles, each of which have more responsibility than the last. Today, Pence is what they say, “a heartbeat away from the presidency,” so it is possible that he may get a chance to hold the most important office in the United States and we may get to see what kind of president he will be.
There is immense value in studying presidential biography and candidate personality. As with anyone, studying their upbringing and their relationships with others is very telling of what kind of person they will become, or what kind of person they are. Like I mentioned earlier, Mike Pence’s childhood appears to have had a large impact on both his personality and his approach to politics. If he were to have grown up in a different states or even a different town in Indiana, I’m sure he would be a much different person. Even subtracting a factor like religion would have made him a much different person as well. Studying this and the personality of a candidate allows us as Americans to make better informed decisions of what kind of leader that person will be. For example, because we know about Mike Pence’s background, we know that he is often guided by his religion, both in life and as a politician. Therefore, we can predict where he will stand on certain issues that are important to the American people. Barber also makes this argument, that understanding personality can help voters make better decisions, and I believe that to be true as well. It matters a great deal what a politician’s policy stances are based on their track record, but it also matters what kind of person they are and how they will interact with others while in office. One of the limitations of studying personality and biography of elected officials are that they cannot tell us everything. We know where Mike Pence grew up and what kind of environment he lived in, which does tell us a lot about him, but we don’t know exactly what the nature of the relationships he had with his parents were, for example. Those relationships are extremely predictive of a person’s demeanor and that kind of information is more uncommon than the typical childhood information that we can gather. However, overall, the study of presidential biography and candidate personality is worthwhile because it tells us what kind of person we’re voting for and how we should vote based on that knowledge.
Admittedly, going into this paper I didn’t have the best opinion of Mike Pence. Putting that opinion aside, what I’ve learned about him has made his decisions seem more justified and explained by his personality and his upbringing. This was a worthwhile exercise because it shows how people end up the way they are and how they act as a result of that. Mike Pence and every other politician is a product of their personality and socialization and that important to remember when voting for a candidate.
Works cited:
Barber, James David. The presidential character: predicting performance in the White House.
Prentice Hall, 1992.
Cuetara, Ines De La, and Chris Good. “Mike Pence: Everything You Need to Know.” ABC News,
ABC News Network, 20 July 2016, abcnews.go.com/Politics/mike-pence/story?id=40279288.
Eason, Brian. “Trump's VP: 10 things to know about Mike Pence.” Indianapolis Star, USA
Today, 18 Jan. 2017, www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/07/07/trumps-vp-10-things-know-indiana-gov-mike-pence/86746980/.
Johnson, Jonathan Mahler and Dirk. “Mike Pence's Journey: Catholic Democrat to Evangelical
Republican.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 July 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/politics/mike-pence-religion.html.
McCawley, Harry. “The Mike Pence story: From a youth in Columbus to candidate for vice
president.” The Republic, AIM Media, 14 July 2016, www.therepublic.com/2016/07/14/the-mike-pence-story-from-a-youth-in-columbus-to-candidate-for-vice-president/.
Phillips, Amber. “Who is Mike Pence?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 4 Oct. 2016,
Tikkanen, Amy. “Mike Pence.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 7 Sept.
Wines, Michael. “Indiana Hometown Molded Mike Pence Even as It Began to Change.” The
New York Times, The New York Times, 21 July 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/us/politics/indiana-hometown-molded-mike-pence-even-as-it-began-to-change.html.
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