I get that Mike Pence wants to run a clean campaign…at least on his part. The guy wants to avoid name calling, and mud slinging. To a point, this is an honorable virtue to stand by, especially when his boss’s campaign is composed of pretty much 85% of that.

But when asked if David Duke – former Grand Wizard of the KKK, and super fan of Donald Trump – is deplorable, the clear answer to this question is “yes.” Yet, this is something Mike Pence refused to do when asked by Wolf Blitzer.

“You would call him a ‘deplorable’?” asked Blitzer.

“No, I’m not in the name-calling business, Wolf. You know me better than that,” Pence responded. “What Hillary Clinton did Friday night is shocking.”

Pence, of course, was referring to the “basket of deplorables” comment Clinton made about Trump’s alt-right support. To be fair, Pence made it clear that he and Trump do not want, or accept Duke’s endorsements. Something Trump had failed to do not long ago when asked, saying he didn’t know who David Duke or the KKK was.

“I’m not really sure why the media keeps dropping David Duke’s name,” Pence said. “Donald Trump has denounced David Duke repeatedly, we don’t want his support and we don’t want the support of people who think like him.”

The trouble here is that there are people out there who are deplorable, and should be called such. People like David Duke, and those who support hatred and superiority based on race, are deplorable people, and should be called such.

I get that Wolf Blitzer – who was trying to get in a cheap blow – was attempting to trap Pence into calling David Duke deplorable, and thus essentially giving in to the idea that Hillary was right. However, David Duke, and the KKK are something you can easily identify as evil, even if elements of the alt-right are not in line with Duke.

It bothers me that a Republican leader, a leader of the party that was founded on achieving equality amongst the races, can’t even label a clear evil as one for fear of sounding like he’s ditching his virtue, or falling into a trap to do so. Simple words can navigate this. Calling evil what it is, is necessary for good people to do.