Behind Mike Pence’s Corn-Tasseled Mask
The vice president’s anecdote about growing up with a cornfield in his backyard is the kind of partial truth that defines his political style
When I started the journey of writing a biography of Vice President Mike Pence, I obsessed over a throwaway phrase he often uses when dismissing questions about his presidential ambitions.
“I’m a small-town kid who grew up with a cornfield in the backyard and dreaming of serving my country in public office.”
This “aw shucks” response is intended as a deflection, but it is also meant to conjure the image of Pence as the modest, God-fearing guy-next-door that plays so well with his conservative (and mostly rural) base of voters.
But that’s all it is: an image. And a carefully and long-crafted one at that.
If I’ve learned anything from my earliest days covering Pence for the Associated Press through the years I spent reporting Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House, it’s that the cornfield bit is the centerpiece of his carefully crafted public mask, a press-release version of his life that implies more divine coincidence and hides his political acumen and ambition.
