Indiana Leaders Thrilled to See Mike Pence Leave State

With several reports coming out Thursday that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will select Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to be his vice presidential nominee, the reaction across the Northwest region of the Hoosier State could be summed up in two words:

Good riddance.

“I’d like to congratulate Gov. Pence on his selection to be Donald Trump’s running mate,” said Thomas McDermott Jr., the mayor of Hammond. “He was aiming for this the whole time, with his eye on Washington, D.C., and never being serious about being the governor of Indiana or the day-to-day operations associated with the job.”

Trump made the selection official Friday morning on Twitter.

"I am pleased to announce that I have chosen Governor Mike Pence as my Vice Presidential running mate," Trump wrote, announcing a news conference planned for 11 a.m. on Saturday.

McDermott, a Democrat in his fourth term who wins his local mayoral election with at least 80 percent of the vote in Hammond, said Pence’s tenure as governor was a mere “stepping stone” and “just something he could put on his resume.”

“His objective has always been to get the heck out of Indiana and back to D.C.,” McDermott said. “Mike never ran the state. He ran the state because he wanted to build his resume.”

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Karl Tatgenhorst, a Valparaiso resident who is running as the Libertarian candidate for lieutenant governor, rated Pence’s nearly four years in the state’s highest office as “very poor.”

“Especially when it comes to social issues,” Tatgenhorst said. “It’s not the government’s job to decide how people live their lives. I look forward to getting people in office who will let people be who they are.”

Pence made national headlines when he signed into law a “Religious Freedom” bill that critics saw as just a way to allow businesses to discriminate against gay and lesbian citizens.

McDermott also took issue with Pence’s refusal to accept about $80 million in federal funds for a statewide pre-kindergarten program.

“He hurt a lot of people just because he wanted to be seen as the guy who wouldn’t take money from D.C.,” said McDermott, who also knocked Pence’s stance on social issues.

“(Former Republican Indiana Gov.) Mitch Daniels was a smart governor — even though he and I didn’t see eye to eye and were on different sides,” McDermott said. “He always told his party not to get involved with social issues and focus on the day-to-day duties. But Pence, because of his ambition to get to D.C., didn’t take Mitch Daniels’ advice. He made policy decisions that brought Indiana to the national stage in a negative light.”

Mike Gonder, chairman of the Republican Party of La Porte County, disagrees. He says all his interactions with Pence have been positive.

“He and his wife are truly very genuine people,” said Gonder, a resident of Michigan City. “He sticks to his convictions and did what he feels right for all Hoosiers.”

While presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has not made her vice presidential choice known, it doesn’t matter who gets it in the mind of McDermott. She is going to win.

“There is no doubt Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States,” he said.

But Tatgenhorst says the Libertarian Party is expecting record numbers to come out for its presidential ticket, which includes presidential nominee Gary Johnson and vice presidential hopeful Bill Weld.

“Both our presidential and vice presidential candidates are former two-term Republican governors who were elected in Democratic states,” Tatgenhorst said. “They have a very broad appeal.”

Trump, Tatgenhorst said, is the “least experienced of the three candidates” when it comes to public policy.

“Donald Trump appealed to a GOP group that aren’t normally voters and they were worried they would lose their base,” he said. “Pence will bring that base with the experience Trump lacks, but there are enough people in the GOP that were disgraced with Pence, so it really was not a sensible move.”

Gonder, however, praised Trump's decision to pick Pence.

“I think by having Pence on the ticket it bridges a gap between the ‘establishment Republicans’ and Trump, it bridges a gap between some (not all) #NEVERTRUMPers and the evangelical base. Plus it gives a light of hope for the staunch conservative base.”

McDermott stopped short of saying Trump’s Pence pick would be good for Indiana. He’s confident that John Gregg, the state’s Democratic governor nominee, would have defeated Pence had the incumbent remained in the governor's race.

“Pence would have lost to John Gregg, and we as Democrats wanted to face him,” he said. “Mike looked at the strong possibility he was going to lose his reelection bid, and he knows he and Trump will lose in the presidential race. So from his perspective, he (likely) thought it would be better for him to go down shooting for the big prize.”

Gonder, though, sees Gregg as a crutch on the Democratic ticket and says state Republicans will rally around whoever their candidate turns out to be.

"We will retain a Republican Governor," he said.

Trump picking a politically experienced Pence as his running mate was a response to the strength shown in the Johnson-Weld Libertarian ticket, according to Tatgenhorst.

“The Republicans needed someone like Pence to take the attention away from the fact that Trump is the least experienced of the three when it comes to public policy,” he said.

With Pence officially out of the Indiana governor’s race as of Friday afternoon, Tatgenhorst says the strategy for him and Libertarian Governor nominee Rex Bell won’t change much, but it does put “a change of pace on things.”

“It’s likely the Indiana GOP will now pick someone that will continue with Pence’s work agenda,” he said. “That was the same agenda we planned on running against with Pence.”

In Hammond, a primarily Democratic town with a Hispanic population of around 30 percent and an African-American population hovering around 25 percent, it’s no surprise that Trump “isn’t too popular around here,” McDermott said. But he wasn’t upset when Trump clinched the Republican nomination with a win in his home state a few months back.

“That just secured it for Hillary, the only logical choice,” he said, adding in the possibility that Clinton could win Indiana — usually a “red” state — in the general election.

“She’s well connected with Democrats in Indiana, including myself,” McDermott said. “Barack Obama won here in 2008, so I’d say it wouldn’t be a stretch at all to see it happen again.”

The exodus of Pence from the Hoosier State wasn’t only praised by elected officials and office seekers in the state. The general public had even harsher words for the soon-to-be former governor of Indiana.

“On behalf of the rational residents of Indiana...you can HAVE Gov. Pence, Mr. Trump...but remember - no returns, no exchanges. All sales are final!” Michelle Matteson wrote on CityByTheLake.org, a community blog in Michigan City.

“So basically you are saying the whole state of Indiana hit the lottery?” Keith Jerome asked with a smile.

“We aren’t stuck with him anymore. Now Trump is stuck with him,” added McDermott, who said America would be “crazy to elect Donald Trump as president.”

“So let’s flush both him and Pence down the same drain.”