Vance’s friends say he makes an effort to avoid politics when texting or socializing, preferring instead to talk about their kids or Ohio State football. But Vance also values their opinions. When preparing for the vice presidential debate last year, he and his wife, Usha, invited several of them to participate and offer perspective he might not have otherwise heard from the professionals in the room, a person involved in the sessions said.
Cullen Tiernan, who has been friends with Vance since they served together in the Marines, said that although they are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, they have had constructive discussions about their differences.
“I’m more to the left, politically, but he’s somebody I’ve enjoyed learning from in so many different ways,” Tiernan added. “I always say I hope I influenced him a little bit, too.”
Tiernan, who lives in New Hampshire, recalled how Vance met up with him and his friends at a Brazilian steakhouse last year after campaigning for Trump ahead of the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
“He took off the MAGA hat,” Tiernan said, “and just very much blended right into Manchester, New Hampshire.”
From one world to another
Growing up in Middletown, Ohio, Vance chased his idea of normal life.
His 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” chronicled his mother’s struggle with drug addiction and other family crises. In one chapter, he recalled how “Mom and Bob” — her third husband — “weren’t that abnormal.” In another, he wrote about the summer he briefly lived with his father, who left him and his mom when Vance was a toddler.
“His life,” Vance noted, “was normal in precisely the way I’d always wanted mine to be.”