The Time Mike Pence Tried to Make Scottishness Great Again

Though we’d been long banned from volunteering from our good friend Mike Pence’s political campaigns, when Booper and I heard that he was running for president and preparing for a first in the nation primary in New Hampshire we couldn’t contain our excitement. We decided to help out in our own way and this story is, of course, a corker. Michael even changed his mind about our participation, though I’m not certain why. This story is even better than the one about the time Booper wrote a one act play about a student with a severe speech impediment attending Hogwarts. Wingahblium Lebebosha, he called it.

A disgrace and an insult to legitimate theater, I tell you.

Though we’d not kept up ourselves on the politics for quite a while, Booper and I put in what I’d say was yeoman’s work “getting up to speed,” as they say. We studied all the tricks, dirty and otherwise. The vote harvesting. The October surprises. PACs, of both the natural and Super varieties. Conjuring the dead for electoral success. We consulted an arcane magus on the subject of the campaign finance, from whose lectures we retired with only a dim understanding that if we were doing it and out of favor, we were probably doing it wrong. Then we heard about a magnificent way to bring people together: the identity politics, though I am certain that Booper’s interest was driven entirely by his focus on the last two syllables of the politics in question.

At any rate, we went out to survey the good people of New Hampshire regarding our good friend Michael’s name recognition using the identity politics in hopes that we might accidentally come up with that most insoluble of pancakes: an intersectional.

I am still ignorant as to what an intersectional is — some sort of grand divan or sofa I imagine — but that is the man that we were after.

Michael, I said, sat before a large easel in a conference room in his campaign headquarters in Manchester. Michael, we’ve found, understandably given that you are a recent vice president — no Schuyler Colfax or Spiro Agnew, you! — that your name recognition is relatively consistent across the various demographical groups we surveyed.

Michael smiled and nodded.

The only group, I said, with any statistical ignorance of yourself, Michael, is that of the Scottish Americans.

Forsooth! Mike said, is it something — I daresay — presbyterian?

His campaign manager, Charles Macpherson, spoke up: It is not, Mr. Pence, if I may. I would go so far as to suggest that the Scottish American residents of New Hampshire might be quite keen to hear your forthright, plain speaking style. Your opposition to the Inclosure Acts will likely thrill the hearts of many.

But how might Michael reach so precise a demographic as this? I said.

There is a games — a Scottish games — he might visit, Macpherson said. While it is in Vermont, it is put on by a New Hampshire concern and just over the border from the granite state. A tent could be acquired for such an event for a relatively modest investment. Besides, there are many points of interest: the highland athletics — 

The you tell me what now? Highland athletics? said Booper.

Highland athletics, Macpherson said. They are essentially understood as a series of athletic events based on an auld drunken wager. “I bet ye cannae throw this tree as far as I can, MacLeod.” “I bet ye cannae carry or throw this rock as far as I can, Agnew.” That sort of thing.

Hold up there, Macpherson. Do you tell me that there is a clan Agnew? I said.

There is.

How serendipitous!

Mr. Macpherson, Booper said, I would never call you any manner of dipitous, as my great friend Bryan just did, but tell me: Can a man as un-Scottish as myself compete in so erudite and effete events?

Booper, Macpherson said, I’ve always considered you a great haggis of a man; you know the meaning of neither of those adjectives and besides, all are welcome at a highland games.

How interesting! Mike said. This might just be the sort of event that will get this campaign underw —

Here Michael paused in awkward trepidation.

Yes? said Macpherson.

Oh, nothing! Mike said.

There obtained a pregnant silence.

So, Macpherson, Michael said, you’ll be spearheading this effort for us?

I will not, he said with decision. They insist on allowing, despite my repeated entreaties, Clan Campbell to attend.

But, Charles, Glen Coe was a long, long time ago!

I cleared me throat.

Not long enough for a Celt, I said.

 

Several weeks later, on the last Saturday of August, the campaign arrived at the grounds for the games. We had reserved a tent in the clan area after some negotiations with New Hampshire’s founding Scottish-American arts organization.

Mike looked resplendent in his kilt.

Now, Michael, I asked. Can a man just wear any old tartan or is there some kind of system?

Hmm, he said. Yes and no. It is frowned upon to wear a tartan one does not have a family connection to, though anyone can wear the noble, famed and feared Black Watch.

And who are you wearing? asked Booper.

Ha! I’ve been asked that so many times! he said. Mother gave young Tanit a social studies assignment this last quarter to do some genealogical research on our family’s history. It turns out that I am a direct descendant of Nial of the Nine Hostages, which endows me with the right to wear the tartan of Clan O’Niell. It is one of the half dozen or so Irish families to have a registered tartan, it turns out.

Michael, Booper said, it is lucky to have so noble an endowment.

Yes, friend Booper, I am lucky to be so well endowed and well do I know it.

We stood admiring Mike in his kilt, with his sporran fashioned out of a taxidermied badger and a tweed flat cap upon his head.

This would have come in handy when the family did our production of “The Scottish Play” last year, he said.

The what play? asked Booper.

We thespians don’t say the name of the play as it is considered bad luck, Mike said.

But what’s the play? Booper insisted.

The Scottish one; by Shakespeare.

Ah, Macbeth! Booper cried. Macbeth is one of me favorites. So Macbethy with all of your tomorrows and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and the unsexing. Some men are Hamlet men, some cheer for Lear, but I’m a Macbeth man, through and through. I love Macbeth. It’s even a fun word to say, Macbeth is. Macbeth!

Though not usually a superstitious man, a cloud of terror appeared to briefly darken Mike’s countenance as Booper spoke.

We strode into the games. On one side of the track were displayed people dressed as ancient Picts, with wolfhounds, weapons, a peat fire and various implements of that long ago age.

Now I ask you, Michael, why would a person play dress up as a person with a thirty year life expectancy?

Oh, Bryan, it takes all kinds! They see their embrace of these folkways as educational. It’s harmless!

I, for one, said Booper, would like to ride a wolfhound.

On the other side of the track there was a bound-off area for a sheepdog competition.

Do you tell me there is such a thing? Booper exclaimed. A sheepdog competition?

There is, and it is a delightful exhibition to observe, Booper, Mike said, I recommend it to you.

How fun! Booper replied, I may just take you up on the suggestion!

Which I knew he would, as I could see him counting off the difference between the current time and that of the competition on his fingers, a broad, if stupid, yet endearing smile occupying his face, his bitten tongue sticking out in mental exertion.

We came to the area where our paths would, for a time, fork.

Bryan, I must leave you, Mike said. I will join you anon at the clan tent. For now, I must go and give a workshop on tone when playing the piobaireachd.

The what?

The ceòl mòr; the great music of the highland pipes. As I now rank as an open professional I may no longer compete at this games, but I may judge and advise. And here I must leave you; I have a workshop to run! There will be massed bands at the end of the day, and I hope to march with them.

And off he went to tune his pipes.

Bryan, Booper said with concern in his voice, what sort of bands are these?

Why, the best kind: pipe and drum bands! I said.

Well, that’s a relief! he said. My feelings on the brass bands are well known.

They are? I don’t think even I have plumbed those depths with you, Booper.

My thoughts are these: The best thing that could happen to brass bands is that they all be melted down and made into bullet shells and church bells, bedam.

Booper went off to explore the food offerings while I  — the very picture of confusion —

wandered over to the Clan MacPence tent to encourage people to support Mike.

I donned a tee-shirt I’d had printed up for the occasion that said “Join Clan MacPence!” on the front. I had brochures, cards, pamphlets, stickers that said “Scots For Bonny Prince Mikey,” commemorative plates, that sort of thing.

The response of the games’s attendees was not what I’d expected, however.

It would appear that my exhortations to join Clan MacPence were interpreted as crass, inappropriate and, according to one elderly gentleman, “doon reet asinine.”

He even called me a wanker!

I was thrice encouraged to perform an act of amorous congress upon myself. I was told Michael couldn’t hold a candle to the “laddie from Dunedin,” whoever that is. A gentleman from Glasgow berated me for a quarter of an hour, though not a word did I understand.

I was all at sea. Things only got worse when an obviously thoroughly inebriated Booper McCarthy ran up. He looked terrible, despite the ludicrous grin his face wore.

Booper, man, what is wrong with you? I asked.

Nothing! I just ate an entire haggis, a half dozen of Scotch eggs, neeps and taddies by the pound and drank a baker’s dozen of Tennent’s! I won the caper toss! I’ve never been better!

Booper, I said, come here and let me get you back on the primrose path to sobriety.

Can’t, he shouted, running off. I’ve entered meself in the sheepdog competition! Remember the porter!

I’d no idea what he meant, but I was too busy fighting off a woman arguing against the premise of my “Make Scottishness Great Again!” bumper stickers to dedicate any attention to the matter.

Mike rescued me moments later.

My fellow Celts! he intoned and the crowd quieted to listen. I apologize if my campaign has offended your sensibilities. This was not my intention or the intention of my campaign. It was simply out of love — of fellowfeeling, you see! — that I asked my staff to reach out to the organizers of this games in order to put up a Clan MacPence tent. I thought the name scanned lithely and functioned neatly as a pun on my own name. Clan Mike Pence, do you see? Whether you see or not is unimportant. What is important is my contrition, my genuine supplication for your forgiveness. Can you, the people of this games, forgive me?

Michael had won the crowd over to his side. If they did not support him, they at least understood him.

Then Booper arrived.

Up the hill he came running, pursued by a slobbering wolfhound, an angry mob of Picts and a flock of sheep driven by all of the dogs of the sheepdog competition operating like the individual instruments in an orchestra. Arvo Pärt himself could not orchestrate so full a pursuit.

Booper tumbled into our tent and the angry mob was calling for blood.

It was then that a lady — white haired, she was, a lady of experience and age and driving a golf cart — parted the crowd like Moses himself and pulled up to our tent, the table which had stood before it certain not to return its deposit to Michael’s campaign.

She narrowed her eyes.

I think you need to leave, she said in even and uncompromising tones.

Ma’am, Mike said, I think you’re right.

However, she said, before you go, Mr. McCarthy has earned this for his performance in the caber toss.

She handed over a medal emblazoned with the word “participant.”

Booper paraded about in it, all aglow, for the following fortnight.