Vice President Mike Pence revved up some outrage when he used an eight-vehicle motorcade to travel around historically car-free Mackinac Island on Saturday.
Residents and visitors to the picturesque Michigan island in Lake Huron usually get around using bikes or horse-drawn carriages, since cars have been prohibited there since 1898.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat and noted critic of the Trump administration, linked to a video on Twitter of Pence’s convoy and said it “makes my stomach turn.”
Ron Fournier, a former Associated Press reporter who covered numerous presidents, told the Detroit Free Press that the fleet of SUVs was “obscene.”
“It’s both the existence and size,” Fournier told the newspaper. “No security expert would claim it’s necessary.”
But Phil Anderson, who was biking around the island that day, said he wasn’t bothered by Pence’s motorcade.
“It’s not an issue at all,” said Anderson of Winona, Minn. “The wonderful president and the wonderful vice president have to get out and meet people and they can’t walk from the airport.”
Then-President Gerald Ford visited the island in 1975, the only sitting commander-in-chief to visit, and traveled in a horse-drawn carriage.
Former Presidents Harry Truman, John Kennedy, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton also visited the island without a convoy of motor vehicles.
Pence is the first sitting vice president to visit.
He traveled to and from Mackinac Island Airport to the Grand Hotel, where he was speaking to the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference, by convoy.
It’s a one-mile trip in each direction.
State Sen. Wayne Schmidt, a Republican whose district includes the island, said he watched the rare parade of cars pass by.
“Any time we can get a high-ranking official, of any political stripe, up here, I welcome him,” Schmidt told the newspaper.