5

He Calls His Wife "Mother"

Mike Pence and his wife Karen have, on the surface, a pretty fantastic-looking marriage, if your definition of a fantastic marriage only includes missionary. They've been together since college, they've been blessed with smart kids, and Karen has remained loyal to Mike even as pledged his loyalty to a man who embodies the opposite of everything they believe as Christians.

In fact, the Pences are such a well-known dream couple that a lot of conservatives and liberals alike were quick to come to their defense when Mike was grilled (and rightly so) for refusing to sit down for dinner with any woman (even a colleague) without anyone else present. Why respect hamburger when you can have steak at home, right?

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

But that's not even the weirdest dinner story coming out of the Pence family. During his time as governor, at a small dinner with some state legislators, Mike found himself seated at the other end of the table from his wife. Not knowing how to do small talk without his talking point prompts (as he is wont to do), a flustered Pence cried out to his wife, "Mother! Mother! Who prepared our meal this evening?" That's right, the 2017 vice president of the United States calls his wife "mother." "Mother!" like how a teenage Mormon girl grumbles at her mom when she says something embarrassing in front of a cute boy. The only time that a sitting governor should address his wife as "mother" in front of other legislators is when those administrators are wearing stovepipe hats and discussing Confederate troop movements.

Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

4

Pence Went Full Racist In One Campaign Ad

To get a sense of how Pence got to where he is now, it's important to dig back into his earliest ventures into politics, when he was young (middle-aged) and idealistic. His first run for Congress in 1988 was less than successful, as he lost to a Democrat (in Indiana!) named Philip Sharp. This understandably left the young upstart Pence feeling fairly dejected, and he came back in 1990 ready to campaign like he was on a mission from God.

Apparently, that divine mandate required Pence to be racist as fuck. See, there was a bit of a desert storm brewing in the early 1990s, and the Pence campaign realized what an important issue oil in the Middle East might become. So they launched an ad campaign that has mysteriously been wiped from the internet, save for this still.

Mike Pence for Congress

That white dude In a Bob Marley costume is an actor pretending to be a Middle Eastern man, ironically thanking Representative Sharp for getting America to rely so heavily on his country's oil. That's racist even by fratboy standards. And remember, this was 11 years before the September 11th attacks launched anti-Muslim feelings in the United States into the stratosphere, making Pence a hipster of Islamophobia (he was into it before everybody else was). There was just no reason for Pence to give this the thumbs-up -- though to his credit, he's admitted the backlash from this ad convinced him to never again launch a negative ad himself. That's what running mates are for.

3

Pence Tried To Create His Own State-Run Media

One of the most heinous parts of living under a Trump administration has been his relentless assault on a free press -- or at least, that small part of the press that speaks up whenever he acts like he's God Emperor of the Doucheclowns. But if they had wanted a bit of a clue as to how media might look under a Putin Trump presidency, they should've looked at Pence's time as governor.

Pence, it turns out, has a bit of a history of censorship. When some of his constituents commenting on his public Facebook page noticed their comments had disappeared, it was revealed that Pence's staff was going through and deleting comments in a targeted fashion. If they were particularly pro-gay or seemed to come from people they knew were specifically anti-Pence, the staffers had been instructed by Pence (which he freely admitted to) to go ahead and get rid of them. Sure, it's just social media, but that's how a lot of people get their news nowadays, and when you're a politician, that's a clear suppression of folks' First Amendment rights. Yes, even if they hate you.

Governor Mike Pence/Facebook

Not that that makes Pence the world's most boring dictator or anything. No, that coup happened when he tried to create a literal state-run news service. The plan was to come up with a controlled breaking news outlet called JustIN, which sounds like how an angry mom would yell at her son to stop skateboarding. JustIN would have meant that government types would be able to control the news that was coming out of their offices, and independent press agencies would have no more access to political coverage other than repeating what JustIN published. This was quickly mocked as "Pravda on the Plains," which still makes it sound more exciting than Pence's particularly mundane evil. Governor Pence quickly backed off the idea, if for no other reason than he probably remembered that conservatives are supposed to appear to reduce the government meddling into people's affairs. Eye on the tax breaks, Pence. Eye on the tax breaks.

2

But His Emails!

It's no secret that Hillary Clinton's emails were one of the issues that dragged her down into the electoral gutter. Democrats flailed wildly to defend her, trotting out a number of politicians who it seems had used private email servers to handle state business in order to show how normal it was for a bunch of old people to not understand internet good. But if the point was to show politicians' digital incompetence, then why didn't they utilize this fun story from the Republican VP candidate?

"Mike Pence"

During the presidential race, Mike Pence sent an email blast titled "Nefarious News!" (which is exactly how we imagine an upset Pence talks), stating that he and his wife Karen were stranded in the Philippines and needed some money. It was quickly uncovered that some really incompetent people ran a substandard phishing attack on Pence's email account and sent a money request to all his contacts. No one believed it, of course, because everybody knows that the Pences only holiday in Gary, Indiana.

1

Even The Republicans In Indiana Hate Him

For a man in such high office, Mike Pence is not a very popular man. Even among conservatives in already-blood-red Indiana, Pence is about as liked as a unisex bathroom with a concealed carry ban. Remember how his first two congressional losses were to a Democrat? Well, that nearly happened again in his gubernatorial elections. His first win in 2012 came with about a 3 percent margin, even as Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama in Indiana by about 10 percent. That's right, Pence has less of a way with people than Mitt Romney.

Even worse was the 2016 gubernatorial election. Prior to accepting the VP nomination in July, Pence was still leading for reelection -- barely. About two months before getting tabbed for the Trump ticket, he was polling at roughly a dead heat with Democrat John Gregg.

The Indy Star

Turns out Pence had spent a little too much of his political capital on the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," which protects the legal rights of people discriminating against others on the basis of their god not liking them. Championing the bill (and then slowly backing away after the slightest of pressure) left him with a higher disapproval rating than approval. Voters claimed that while Pence might have been better equipped to handle things like the budget, they trusted Gregg more to handle things like, and this is an actual quote, "not embarrassing the state of Indiana on a national level."

Finally, Pence has been on the receiving end of a bunch of protests throughout his career, though it seems like the worst is yet to come. But none probably stung more than watching about 150 graduates of the University of Notre Dame and their families walk out as Pence (who was only invited because student body had protested against inviting Trump) got up to give the commencement address last May. That's a significant percentage of (largely wealthy and conservative) students who walked away from the most important day of their lives in order to not be on the same football field as a man like Pence.

Isaac is a proud Notre Dame alum, a Buckeye by birth, and a Hoosier by girth. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram.

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