Opinion: Mike Pence Fails Political Crisis Management Test

UPDATE: Shortly after this column was published, Gov. Pence issued a memo, killing the JustIN website.

By John Dodge

CHICAGO (CBS) -- When news broke that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's administration was about to launch a state-funded "news service," it didn't take long to realize that the man with presidential aspirations had a crisis on his hands.

In the world of digital news consumption, the definition of "not long" is just a few minutes.

The idea was ridiculed as a clear ploy not only to circumvent the working press at taxpayer expense but to compete with journalists and provide stories to smaller news organizations with small staffs.

What happened over the next 36 hours is more alarming than the idea itself.

Pence and his staff clearly failed at managing a "crisis."

Because the governor, and former long-time U.S. House member, has been putting out feelers about a White House bid, this was now a national story.

And, on the national stage, Pence hid from public view. That has to raise some questions about how a real crisis would be handled if he were in the Oval Office in 2017.

Some of the basic rules of crisis management are to find out what happened and address the issue directly.

In this case, something along the lines of "this was a bad idea and it isn't going to happen" would have been a good strategy.

That didn't happen.

First, the governor made a call to a Indianapolis Star columnist, Matthew Tully, to try to set the record straight.

He went on to try to shift the blame to anonymous staff.

Then, the governor continued his bob and weave, appearing on a radio talk show to further distance himself from the controversy.

Hang on just one second, here.

He told one Indy Star journalist he was "tangentially" aware of the news service plan, but then later told WIBC-FM radio host Greg Garrison he knew nothing.

As he continued to avoid answering questions from statehouse reporters, he sent out his communications staff to further clarify his administration's position.

According to a series of Tweets from the Star's Tom LoBianco, that didn't go well, at all.

Communications Director Christy Denault said JustIN initially was intended as an improvement to the state's online press release calendar system.

Then she actually tried to take cover, claiming the journalism language used in planning documents was "shorthand."

Really?

Take a look at this:

So the byline on a draft story that uses the title "Managing Editor, JustIN News Service" is shorthand for, what exactly?

Because Pence and his advisers weren't smart enough to just kill the whole thing, they have now allowed Democrats to score even more political points.

On Thursday, Dems introduced a bill that would ban funding for JustIN, thus keeping the issue alive for another day.

This is not a good way to manage a small-time crisis.

Perhaps Gov. Pence isn't ready for a bigger stage.

According to the AP, Mike Pence's mother recently said her son would make a good U.S. president — just not yet.

Nancy Pence wants her son to get two terms as Indiana governor under his belt. Then, it would be "wonderful" if he ran for president.

Clearly, it is time to listen to your mother, governor.

Or, at least learn when to cut your losses and fully accept responsibility for a mistake.