Tony Cook and Chelsea Schneider

The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS — After two weeks on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, Gov. Mike Pence’s role is coming into sharper focus.

And it involves a lot of cleanup.

Pence faced his first major test as Trump’s clarifier-in-chief this week. His task: to make more palatable Trump’s widely ridiculed comments about the parents of Humayun Khan, an Army captain who was killed in Iraq.

The difficulty of that assignment was on display during Pence’s town hall-style campaign stop Monday in Carson City, Nev.

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A mother who said her son serves in the Air Force stood up and asked Pence — the father of a Marine — how he tolerated what she called Trump’s disrespect for the armed forces.

The crowd began to boo the woman. “Why are you here?” one audience member shouted.

Pence calmed the crowd, saying, “Folks, that’s what freedom looks like, and that’s what freedom sounds like.”

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He then repeated a statement he had released the day before. “Captain Khan is an American hero, and we honor him and honor his family as we do all Gold Star families,” he said.

The mother later expressed gratitude for how Pence handled the situation and said the attendees were respectful toward her afterward.

Pence’s response stood in stark contrast to Trump’s.

In a speech at the Democratic National Convention, Khan’s father, Khizr Khan, accused Trump of smearing Muslims and sacrificing nothing for the country.

The billionaire businessman shot back by suggesting that Khan’s mother, who stood silently by his father’s side at the convention, was not allowed to speak because of her religion. Trump also said on a morning news show that he has made sacrifices, too, because he has constructed skyscrapers and employed thousands of workers.

"I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic convention. Am I not allowed to respond?" Trump said Sunday on Twitter.

Trump’s comments drew sharp rebukes from Republicans and Democrats alike.

In selecting his running mate, Trump said he wanted someone who could navigate Capitol Hill and help unify the party. In Pence, he got a six-term congressman who is well acquainted with the protocol of official Washington and who once hosted a conservative radio show described as Rush Limbaugh on decaf.

Pence’s exchange with the Carson City military mom demonstrated his ability to de-escalate a tense situation with his trademark combination of discipline and decency. It’s an asset that could be crucial to Trump’s efforts to unify the Republican establishment around his wild-card candidacy.

“Mike Pence appears to be the parent in this relationship, and Donald Trump is the man child,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “The campaign would be better off handing Donald Trump’s iPhone to Mike Pence and letting him handle the tweets from now on.”

It’s not clear how far Pence’s calmer approach will go in pacifying Trump’s detractors within the GOP. But even if Pence’s efforts fail, political experts say, they leave him in a strong position for a future presidential run of his own.

“It would be in Pence’s interest for him to campaign separately as much as possible,” Sabato said, “because he then can make distinctions between himself and his running mate.”

But drawing contrasts with your own running mate is a delicate and awkward task.

Mike Murphy, an Indianapolis-based GOP public relations executive, compared the relationship between Trump and Pence to an arranged marriage.

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“You may disagree with what your wife said, but you’re not going to say she’s crazy,” he said. “You’re going to change the subject or dance a little bit and say she means well.”

The Khan debacle isn’t the first to highlight the different messaging strategies of the two men.

Take, for example, Trump’s call for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States — a proposal Pence called “offensive and unconstitutional” last year.

Now that he is Trump’s vice presidential candidate, Pence carefully avoids any reference to Trump’s proposed religious test, referring instead to “suspending immigration from countries that have been compromised by terrorism.”

It’s a distinction Trump glossed over last month during his first joint appearance with his new running mate on CBS' 60 Minutes.

“Call it whatever you want,” he said. “We’ll call it territories, OK?”

Pence, meanwhile, chalked up any apparent disagreement to differences in how the two men communicate. “Clearly this man is not a politician,” he said. “He doesn’t speak like a politician.”

The nationally televised exchange was a small glimpse into how the relationship between the two candidates would play out over the coming weeks: Trump would continue his brash, unfiltered campaign style that many supporters find authentic, while Pence would sanitize Trump’s comments that skeptics say go too far.

That dynamic was evident at a Trump news conference last week. Amid concerns that Russia might have been involved in the hack of Democratic National Committee emails, he encouraged the hackers to also expose emails from Hillary Clinton's private server.

That same day, Pence released a statement saying that if Russia is interfering with U.S. elections, “both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences.”

The episodes suggest Pence will spend much of his time converting Trump’s incendiary comments into something easier to digest, said Andy Downs, director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics.

“There is no doubt part of what he will do is translate what Trump says to language that is appealing to establishment Republicans, especially social conservatives,” he said.

How successful that strategy will be remains unknown.

Some question whether Pence can survive the presidential campaign without being tainted by Trump's inflammatory comments.

"If Pence had a modicum of dignity or decency, he would tell the American people, 'I made a terrible mistake. Mr. Trump is so morally bankrupt and of such shabby character that I could not possibly serve with him,'" said Jennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post. "Failing to do so, the same should be said of Pence."

But Murphy, who has known Pence for 40 years, said the first few weeks of Pence’s partnership with Trump have shown the governor's determination to stick to his principles.

“Donald Trump has made it clear he’s not going to change who he is,” Murphy said, “and the governor’s comments on these issues make it clear he’s not going to change who he is.”

Follow Tony Cook and Chelsea Schneider on Twitter: @indystartony and @IndyStarChelsea