Wednesday’s edition of The Borowitz Report in The New Yorker seems to have gotten a laugh from an unlikely source: Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence.
Mr Pence was the object of satire in writer Andy Borowitz’s column on Wednesday, which was titled “Pence Flees in Terror After No One but One Woman Shows Up at Rally” — a riff on Mr Pence’s statement several years ago that he does not dine alone with women who are not his wife and does not attend events where alcohol is being served without his wife either.
Mr Pence’s response Borowitz’s work gained him plaudits.
“Ok, this one made me laugh,” the former vice president tweeted above a link to the article.
Several Twitter users complimented the often buttoned-up Republican on his unexpected show of humour.
“Mike Pence demonstrating a meaningful sense of humor was NOT on my bingo card today, but I am here for it and thankful!” Howard Forman wrote.
The Harvard constitutional law professor emeritus Laurence Tribe was similarly impressed with the former vice president’s response.
“OMG!” Mr Tribe wrote. “Now @BorowitzReport can finally retire — something I thought I could do by taking emeritus status, but that just made me busier than ever.”
The Borowitz article is far from the first time late night hosts or satirists have mocked Mr Pence’s rules for engagement with women. In 2017, The Onion ran an article titled “Mike Pence Asks Waiter To Remove Mrs. Butterworth From Table Until Wife Arrives.”
Mr Pence launched his campaign for the presidency with a rally in Iowa earlier this week but faces long odds of beating his former running mate Donald Trump and a bevy of other Republican candidates including Gov Ron DeSantis of Florida.
In the first days of his nascent campaign, Mr Pence has pitched himself as a staunch conservative who supports the entirety of Mr Trump’s platform but who also stood up for democracy when he refused to support efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021.
Whether that pitch connects with Republican primary voters, many of whom may not see Mr Pence’s defence of democracy as a positive, remains to be seen. Mr Pence’s relationship with Mr Trump has long since soured to the point where Mr Pence is not expected to be under consideration for the vice presidential spot on the GOP ticket should Mr Trump triumph in the primary.
Mr Pence’s politics are aligned with his born-again evangelical Christianity. He is a longtime opponent of abortion rights, and one of the few Republican candidates who has voiced total support for a national abortion ban in the aftermath of the end of Roe v Wade.
