Can Mike Pence’s 'dad jokes' make him a likable candidate?
If he decides to go for it, uptight Mike Pence would predictably be chill-challenged in a race for the presidency.
Take his appearance during the Trump administration standing in for his boss to headline the Gridiron Club Dinner. After a few jokes written by someone else, he "didn't exactly slay," Politico snarkily noted in a story Saturday on some of Pence's candidate personality issues.
He's headlining the dinner again tonight.
His "comedic sweet spot is squarely in the 'Dad joke'" zone, quipped Politico.
But believe it or not, some think Pence has a killer, if extremely subtle, sense of humor that he keeps hidden away. "His humor is under-estimated," Nick Ayers, Pence’s former vice-presidential chief of staff, told Politico.
Pence's former chief strategist and senior adviser Tom Rose claims he's "a dangerously fantastic mimic — scary good. I don’t know why he never lets anyone see that."
Former Indianapolis Star cartoonist Gary Vavel, who first met Pence in 1994 as a guest on "The Mike Pence Show," praised the future vice president's "self-deprecating sense of humor" — something he would never learn from Donald Trump. Pence referred to himself on the program as “His Mikeness," which is difficult to imagine.
Politico noted, again snarkily, that the true test of Pence's humor is "audience dependent."
