Can Trump’s ‘Straight Man’ Lighten Up?

At the last gridiron he attended in 2018, Pence found himself as the punchline, not its deliverer. Trump, who had agreed to speak that year, took aim at Pence: “I really am proud to call him the apprentice.” Trump told the crowd that to prepare, he had talked to some “of the funniest people around the White House, starting with my No. 2: Mike Pence! Oh, I love you, Mike. Some of you may think that Mike is not a comedian, but he is one of the best straight men you’re ever going to meet. … He is straight!”

Pence sat with Karen to Trump’s left, red-faced and seemingly embarrassed by his boss’ potshot

Since then Pence has struggled to emerge from Trump’s shadow. In recent months, he has done more than perhaps any of his GOP competitors to distinguish himself from Trump — on his actions on January 6, on his wobbling support for aid for Ukraine, on not committing to backing Trump as the nominee.

Pence is not the first national politician who has struggled to let his full self into public view. There was Mitt Romney, who popular culture and commentators portrayed as stilted and awkward in his 2012 presidential bid. But Greg Whiteley’s 2014 Netflix documentary “Mitt” revealed him in more intimate moments as a mischievous wit. And Bob Dole, the former presidential candidate from Kansas, had a dust bowl-dry sense of humor that didn’t always register. Pence, for his part, is well aware of the Dole parallel, according to Atterholt, who has urged Pence to let his more gregarious self shine through. “Here’s a situation where these attributes are extremely flattering, and they’re unfortunately hidden,” he told me.

It’s doubtful Pence would ever try a Sununu-style roast of Trump. But can he dial up the heat, even a little? After all this is a guy who went out of his way to celebrate the creator of Garfield on the House floor. Garfield!

But for this humor gambit to actually work, Pence will have to embrace it and not just at a single inside-the-Beltway event. Whether Pence can let the world see this authentically goofy and charming part of his life story could be a decisive factor in how he fares in the up close and personal crucible of campaigning in early primary states such as Iowa. For a man who improvised his way through thousands of hours of calls from radio listeners, who can dash off a compelling caricature of a new acquaintance in a matter of seconds, who can deadpan his way through a speech on the stump, it’s not impossible to imagine that person doing well in a presidential campaign.

Can Mike Pence become the candidate Americans want to have a non-alcoholic beer with? That is a question only Pence can answer, Atterholt told me. “It’s not his staff who is holding him back,” he said.

Last November, in a Raleigh hotel conference room, at the end of an interview with Pence, I asked Pence to give me a taste of his vaunted “Dubya” imitation.

“Well, you got to be in the moment,” Pence demurred.

“You got to give him two minutes,” Marc Short, his longtime senior adviser, urged Pence. “Tell him the story of you going to the immigration meeting.”

Pence conceded and told me a story about going to the Oval Office to meet Bush during the immigration reform debate in 2006, during which Pence had co-authored a guest-worker proposal that was going to be part of the final package.

“President said, ‘Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” Pence recounted, nailing W.’s Crawford, Texas, twang. “Well, I noticed you’re not exactly from a border state,” Pence’s W. continued. It was legitimately funny. But despite the laughs he got, Pence didn’t milk the moment. He quickly dropped the mimicry and shifted back to his more familiar earnest mode.

We soon said our goodbyes and then he ducked out to a donor lunch, and then a Senate campaign event.

I haven’t seen much evidence of his lighter side since that encounter. But he’s got a show Saturday night.