Cleveland
In other news, Indiana governor Mike Pence accepted the Republican nomination for vice-president Wednesday night.
On a night traditionally reserved for the number-two person on the ticket, it was the number-two finisher in the GOP primary, Ted Cruz, who headlined the activity inside Quicken Loans Arena, inciting a karaoke chorus of boos with remarks that encouraged Republicans to vote their conscience. Pence, on the other hand, was tame and low-key—and, for Donald Trump’s purposes, on key.
“The choice could not be made more clear. Americans can elect someone who literally personifies the failed establishment in Washington, D.C., or we can choose a leader who will fight every day to make America great again,” the Hoosier chief executive and former congressman said during a steady speech, doubtlessly a welcome change from Melania Trump’s plagiarism controversy on Monday and the Cruz eye-opener Wednesday.
He introduced himself to voters with a touch of self-deprecation mostly missing from the personality-driven campaign. Trump is “a man known for a large personality, a colorful style, and lots of charisma,” Pence said, “so I guess he was looking for some balance on the ticket.”
That certainly comes in the form of the mild-mannered Pence, who lacks the attack-dog mentality of his one-time VP contenders Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich but professes a traditional, three-pillared conservatism with a restrained delivery.
“I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order,” Pence said Wednesday, an attitude he’s taken throughout his career. His track has taken him from a broadcast booth in Indiana to the halls of Congress in the nation’s capital, then to the statehouse in the Hoosier heartland and finally to Trump’s side at the GOP convention in Cleveland.
He focused much of his message Wednesday on next week’s activity in Philadelphia, where Hillary Clinton will accept the Democratic party’s nod for president. “At the very moment when America is crying out for something new and different, the other party has answered with a stale agenda and the most predictable of names,” Pence said.
Trump represents something new—an observation Pence granted even as he endorsed Cruz ahead of the Indiana primary in May. “I particularly want to commend Donald Trump, who has given voice to the frustration of millions of working Americans with a lack of progress in Washington, D.C.,” he said on a local radio program. He carried that perspective further in his acceptance address, calling Trump “a doer in a game usually reserved for talkers.”
Pence’s lieutenant governor, Eric Holcomb, gave THE WEEKLY STANDARD his take on Trump in even more direct terms.
“The American public is obviously tired—rejecting the status quo. That’s what we’ve had. We’ve had this deterioration for years and years, the country has been lagging, and here along comes not only the ultimate showman, but a leader who says let’s get back on track—damn the torpedoes, I’m in it to win it,” Holcomb told me.
Pence is more cautious. Though the first-term executive belly-flopped into some hot water during his governorship over a religious freedom law, his errors were attributable to bungled messaging more than temperament.
Despite cranking up the aggressiveness of his tone during a campaign appearance with Trump last week, he signaled to Republican voters Wednesday that his even-keeled personality won’t change much. He took much of Trump’s core pitch—the rebellious, outsider’s perspective, the appeal to blue-collar voters, and the uncompromising warning against Clinton’s leadership—and tempered it for his style. It came off well inside the convention space, where delegates seemed to welcome the opportunity to applaud instead of jeer.
But on this night—Pence’s—it was the jeers for Cruz that rang loudest.
