Column: How Mike Pence is like Sansa Stark

Watching the “60 Minutes” interview of Donald Trump and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in my hotel room, all I could think of was Sansa Stark. For those of you who aren’t “Game of Thrones” addicts, I’ll explain. When we are first introduced to Sansa in the first season, we meet an innocent, doe-eyed girl who can’t wait to get out of her backwater province and marry the dashing young king Joffrey. An idealist and a romantic, Sansa learns all too slowly that Joffrey is a sadist and a bully.

In order to survive at court, Sansa has to learn to lie about her devotion and admiration for Joffrey even when speaking privately to sympathizers. With her lips she says “Joffrey is the bravest, wisest King who ever lived,” while her eyes have that glassy POW look. And when she’s in the same room with the mercurial, narcissistic boy king, she seems internally at war with her body’s urge to flinch or flee.

So, yeah, Trump’s vice presidential pick reminds me of Sansa.

Over and over again, CBS’s Lesley Stahl asked Pence to reconcile his long-held positions on free trade (he’s for it), negative campaigning (he’s against it), the Muslin ban (Pence was against it, but now he’s for it because Trump has changed his position, sort of), the Iraq war (Pence voted for it) and so on. Pence would look to Trump for permission to answer, like a dog not sure whether he’ll get the rolled-up newspaper again if he jumps on the furniture. When Trump let the governor go ahead, which wasn’t often, Pence kept falling back on Sansa-like assurances that Trump is a “good man.”

Towards the end of the interview, when Stahl asked Pence whether he agreed with Trump that Sen. John McCain “is not a hero because he was captured.” Pence’s unease was palpable. He started to ramble about his “great deal of respect” for the former POW before Trump let him off the hook.

“You could say yes… that’s okay…that one, you could say yes, I mean, you’re not — it’s fine,” Trump said as if he was trying to keep Pence from having a panic attack.

The spectacle was consistent with the awkward, all-too-public process by which Trump settled on Pence — reportedly at the insistence of his family — in the name of party unity. But Pence is hardly a game-changer.

Trump and his aides claim that conservatives are ecstatic over the selection of Pence. Though it’s true the Indiana governor has friends and admirers within the conservative and Republican establishments, there’s little evidence of a pro-Pence prairie fire out there. And watching Pence renounce, abdicate or rationalize away 30 years of principles, like a decorated military officer voluntarily ripping off his medals and badges, is unlikely to spark one. Most Americans don’t know enough about him to form an opinion (86% of registered voters, according to a CBS poll), and introducing him to the country as an ideological vacillator may not make the best first impression.

Certainly Pence won’t convert many anti-Trump holdouts. Besides, the Stop Trump movement almost certainly died last week at the hands of RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and his minions on the rules committee. Pence’s ongoing humiliation will, if anything, confirm worries that Trump will demand blind loyalty to his agenda, or at least his cult of personality.

The Pence pick is even odder in the larger context of the Trump campaign. Trump’s greatest asset is Hillary Clinton. For conservatives of a Pencian bent, Trump can wield the prospect of a Clinton presidency like a Medusa’s head, petrifying any who gaze upon it. What Trump really needed was a candidate who could help him win over potential Clinton supporters among independents. It’s unclear that Pence has the skill sets or positions to do that. Awkward promises that his betrothed is a “good man” probably aren’t enough.

Pence is man without a natural constituency. He won’t win over steadfast Never Trumpers, and he won’t woo any moderate Independents. Though he may pick up a few sympathy votes from Sansa Stark fans, that’s about all.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com

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