Mike Pence fills in at Arizona rally for a sick Donald Trump — but it's just not the same

There’s something about the chaotic interplay between candidate and crowd that electrifies a Donald Trump rally, an electricity that Vice President Mike Pence, standing in for the president in Arizona this week, just can’t replicate.

Even he knows it.

“Some people think we're a little bit different,” the vice president joked on Thursday at a rally for Trump supporters in Peoria, Arizona.

With Mr Trump back at the White House fighting off Covid-19, Mr Pence, his top deputy, slid ably into the top billing spot to deliver the president’s “Make America Great Again… Again” message.

Mr Pence dutifully rattled off the Trump administration’s accomplishments over the last three and a half years, including the 2017 tax code overhaul that cut taxes across the board, for middle class Americans as well as corporations and the ultra-rich; the appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices, and the nomination of a third; and the drawdown of US troops in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

The vice president’s stump speech on Thursday bore striking similarities to his answers to questions at the first and only 2020 vice presidential debate the night before, demonstrating his discipline sticking on message.

That linear, restrained approach to public speaking provided a sharp contrast to the abrasiveness and unpredictability of Donald Trump’s rallies, where the president creates a sense of anticipation and excitement among the crowd for when he inevitably veers off onto tangents about conspiracy theories and personal insults against his opponents.

Perhaps the most applause Mr Pence received on Thursday was when he promised Mr Trump would be back on the campaign trail soon.

“I spoke to the president this morning, told him I was headed to Arizona. And I gotta tell you, President Trump and First Lady Melania are doing just great, and he's going to be back on the road and in the fight before you know it,” the vice president said.

Mr Pence played all the hits from a typical Trump rally — just without the rhetoric nob cranked up to its highest partisan pitch.

“We're not going to defund the police — not now, not ever. We're gonna back the blue,” he said, referring to calls from some progressive leaders to cut funding for police departments and build them back from the ground up.

Mr Biden also does not support defunding the police.

The vice president on Thursday presented the 2020 election as a choice between “freedom” and “socialism,” even though Mr Biden’s campaign has disavowed socialism on several occasions.

The Trump campaign has sought to portray the former Democratic vice president as a stooge of leftist lawmakers such as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

“I think the choice in this election is whether America remains America [or] whether we're gonna let Joe Biden and Kamala Harris steer our nation onto a course of socialism and decline,” Mr Pence said.

The vice president, as he did at the debate the night before, hit out at Mr Biden’s campaign for its tax plan, which the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has estimated would raise US tax revenues by roughly $4trn.

Mr Biden and his running mate, Ms Harris, have said they wouldn’t raise taxes for any individual making less than $400,000 per year.

The surge in tax revenue would come from increasing the corporate tax rate and the income tax rate for America’s highest earners.

As the campaigns make their final pitches to voters ahead of the 3 November elections, both have stressed the need for American “unity.”

Speaking on the site of the US Civil War battlefield at Gettsyburg, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, Mr Biden urged Americans to ditch the fierce partisanship that has gripped the nation during the Trump era and “turn division into unity.”

He promised to be a president for all Americans, even the ones who do not end up voting for him.

Mr Pence ended his speech on Thursday with a similar message of empathy for voters on the other side of the aisle, something observers are not used to seeing at rallies with the president himself.

“I've travelled all across America the last four years and I can tell you there will always be more that unites the people of the United States of America than will ever divide us the chief among those things is faith. This is a nation of faith,” he said.

“Pray for all the American people,” he said. “Pray for America. It’ll make a difference.”