The Mike Pence Rule Is Alive and Well

Turns out Husband-Son Mike Pence is not the only man who is extremely afraid of being overcome by lust and temptation if he is in the mere presence of another woman without his Mother-Wife by his side (or more accurately, ten paces behind him). Joining Pence in living his life by this rule is one Robert Foster, a Republican (natch) state representative in Mississippi who is now running for governor. Recently, he turned down a request from Mississippi Today reporter Larrison Campbell who asked to shadow him to better assess his candidacy. Why? Because she’s a woman. Mother, no!

Here’s what Foster’s campaign director told her after she made the request for a ride-along:

In two phone calls this week, Colton Robison, Foster’s campaign director, said a male colleague would need to accompany this reporter on an upcoming 15-hour campaign trip because they believed the optics of the candidate with a woman, even a working reporter, could be used in a smear campaign to insinuate an extramarital affair.

“The only reason you think that people will think I’m having a (improper) relationship with your candidate is because I am a woman,” this reporter said.

Robison said the campaign simply “can’t risk it.”

Robison, according to Campbell, acknowledged that the campaign’s demand that a colleague who was a man join her was a “weird request.” But even her explanation that she would wear a press badge (and, I imagine, some sort of demure frock that covered her from neck to toe as well as a bonnet and a look of weary resignation on her face at all times) didn’t change the mind of Foster’s campaign.

“There really wasn’t any wiggle room, there was no getting around it,” Campbell said to CNN. “I think it was like disbelief. I don’t think it was until I hung up that I got upset by it.”

As for Foster, he had this to say on Wednesday when asked to defend his position: “It’s a ride-along request for a 16-hour day that we were going to be on the road. The other opponents of mine got a male reporter to ride along with them, which is a little bit different situation.”

He added, “In our case it was a female reporter asking to ride along, and my campaign director is in and out and gone sometimes, we have to divide and conquer, and there was just going to be a lot of opportunities where it would’ve been an awkward situation I didn’t want to put myself in.”

Ah, yes, so many awkward situations, such as a journalist discreetly scribbling in her reporter’s notebook as you equate abortion to “killing babies,” or how the discrimination that LGBT Mississippians face is “part of the price you pay to live in a free society,” or rant about how “radical socialists and communists” are trying to “dismantle America.”

“We just wanted to keep things professional,” Foster said. He added that this is a rule he follows in other areas of his life: “I’ve always had the same practice in business. I’m not alone with a female employee and put myself in a position to have a ‘he-said, she-said moment.’” Sure, dude, because all women are just dying to accuse men of sexual assault, because it’s so great for our careers and for our reputations.

Foster has been clowned and criticized, obviously. But he’s still pretty pleased with himself. “As I anticipated, the liberal left lost their minds over the fact I choose not to be alone with another woman,” Foster wrote on Wednesday in a tweet. “They can’t believe, that even in 2019, someone still values their relationship with their wife and upholds their Christian Faith.”

Foster, if your marriage can be threatened by the mere presence of another woman breathing the same air as you, I have some bad news for you.