Hi David,
Thanks for the reply! I had originally constructed my footer with the vertical bars as text, but I had some sections that didn’t have the two variables (only one) and the bar looked out of place.

I had taken a screen shot, but couldn’t figure out how to upload it. :) Here’s an image in dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j32gb1m4xg9ge2f/RunningFooter-2variables.png?dl=0

I did a workaround instead of using a GREP style for the footer that didn’t work, I manually applied the character style to the master page.

I was confused because the GREP style worked on the right-hand footer.