Former Vice President Mike Pence made headlines with his reported testimony before a federal grand jury investigating the January sixth attack on the Capitol. Students at the University of Alabama got the chance to see Presidential politics in action when Pence spoke on campus last month. APR student reporter Luke Pollock has more on what the former Vice President’s visit could mean as voters prepare to head to the polls in 2024.
Mike Pence spoke at the invitation of the group Young America’s Foundation, or YAF for short. The talk was titled "Saving America from the Woke Left" and was open to the public. Pence hasn’t declared for the GOP nomination for President—not yet…
“Based off of the information I've seen, he already is among the top players with polling that's been conducted currently,” said Wyatt Eicholz. He’s president of the University of Alabama Young America’s Foundation. ”So yes, I believe he's certainly a major contender for the upcoming 2024 bid if he chooses to run.”
Although Pence has not announced his presidential bid yet, he did offer insights into what his campaign would look like if he declares candidacy in a media address before his speech.
“And I've always been about the same things, about a strong defense, about limited government, about free market economics, about traditional values,” said Pence in Tuscaloosa
The Republican National Committee announced this month that the group YAF will partner with Fox News to host the first GOP Debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in August. Richard Fording is a professor of political science at the University of Alabama. He says that Pence’s agenda aligns very closely with YAF.
“Young America's Foundation is sort of aligned with traditional conservative principles, and that's exactly how Mike Pence is framing his agenda is one that supports freedom. If you had counted how many times he's used the word freedom, it would've been a pretty large number, but I think a lot of people are wanting that because they don't like the direction that Trump has taken,” said Fording.
One issue Pence was asked to address during the UA visit was gun violence. The non-profit group Gun Violence Archive noted that three days after his talk, seven mass shootings broke out across the United States including one in Dadeville, Alabama
Although these attacks happened after Pence’s visit, there were still a number of shootings that occurred leading up to the event. A bank in Louisville Kentucky suffered a shooting that killed five. Connor Sturgeon, the shooter in that case, was a graduate of the University of Alabama. Pence responded to the shooting in Louisville and other shootings with two proposals about gun violence.
“My heart goes out to Louisville, Kentucky, as well as in Nashville and elsewhere. I think the time has come in our country for us to move past the tired arguments over the Second Amendment and move toward real solutions, but I think we've got to have a greater deterrent in the laws of this country to people engaging in mass shootings that we've seen far too many of. Secondly, I think we've got to get a lot more serious about institutional mental health care,” said Pence.
Professor Fording says that addressing gun violence has been an area in which Republican presidential candidates have suffered greatly.
“There's no Republican that's going to be able to campaign on any platform that would make gun laws stricter,” he observed. “Where I think the Republicans have really suffered is they really haven't had agenda for reform. It's been more of just a defense.”
The University of Alabama’s student newspaper The Crimson White says there were roughly 1,500 people in attendance for Pence’s talk. The group YAF which invited the Vice President to speak says hundreds were turned away because every seat in the ballroom of the UA Student Center, where the event was held, was filled.
Professor Fording says that events such as the visit from the former vice president are good for the University of Alabama because they bring positive attention.
“I hope that we continue to bring more highly visible people from both sides whenever we bring in the former vice president. That does bring a lot of positive attention to the university as an important place for dialogue,” said Fording.
