Gov. Mike Pence accepts the vice presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland Wednesday. And we could be in a much better place.
Advertisement
Conventions are supposed to be all about party unity, when the victors and the vanquished raise their hands together and pledge to fight side-by-side in November.
Former republican candidate Marco Rubio said “Clinton does not have the honesty, the courage or the independence to be the president we need for the next four years, after the president we’ve had for the past eight”. The second-highest vote-getter in the primary hasn’t endorsed Trump and has stayed coy about whether he will in his speech. Ingraham earned one of the loudest cheers of the whole convention, a raucous standing ovation, when she accused the media of failing to report on the “phonies” and “frauds” she said Trump has exposed. Another candidate, Ted Cruz echoed those tones focusing on the “failures” of the democratic party and did not laud his party’s nominee forcing some boo’s to be directed at him from the republican crowd and to be interrupted by Trump entering the convention.
Trump later tweeted a response about Cruz’s betrayal, shrugging it off as not a big deal.
One of the benefits Pence brings to the ticket is his ties with both social and fiscal conservatives, many of whom have been less then enthusiastic about Trump.
Pence seized the task of selling Trump to the conservatives gathered for a luncheon hosted by The American Conservative Union Foundation. Early on he delivered his trademark line: “I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order”.
At the same time, Pence’s ties with Koch Brothers could, potentially, lead to the alliance that the Trump campaign has needed all along.
“I have a sense of this man, I have sense of his heart”. “We are thrilled to have Gov. Pence on the ticket”.
Through it all Republicans savaged Clinton, painting an apocalyptic vision of America if she should win and aggressively challenging her character.
Will it ultimately move the needle in the 2016 presidential race?
To the editor: Your article on Pence’s unsubstantiated claims in regard to the 2001 Washington anthrax attacks may shed some additional light on the Trump campaign’s choice for vice president.
“I actually got out to the auto in the alley and saw all these cars and I turned to the security official and asked ‘Are they all with us?'” he said.
But maybe not. That whole story means that Melania Trump knew when she was reading the speech where the original ideas had come from.
Whether the cuts do much to boost the IN economy is uncertain, said Purdue University economist Larry DeBoer, who has studied IN tax policy for about 30 years.
That may be the closest the governor has come to asserting himself with his unlikely new senior partner. Passed over for VP, he took the stage and proved again that he is one of the most effective communicators in the party.
“Ted Cruz said you can vote your conscience for anyone who will uphold the Constitution”, Gingrich said.
On Wednesday afternoon, Mike Pence, Donald Trump and their respective entourages strode onto Cleveland’s grassy mall.
Advertisement
It was a brilliant clean-up act, and his speech went on to breathe energy back into the crowd.
