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Donald Trump’s Friday morning tweet announcement of his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence (R), stands to go down in history as one of the most lackluster and poorly executed in American political history. But, the sickening Jihadist attack in Nice, France on the eve of the announcement, Pence’s previous statements about Muslim immigration, and the Indiana filing deadline created a message timing nightmare that the Trump/Pence ticket is desperately trying to awake from.
Donald Trump’s much-anticipated confirmation of Pence as his running mate was expected to happen at 11 a.m. Friday morning. This would have set up the campaign to go into the convention with a more measured, presidential appeal in a phase of the election cycle where both Trump and the RNC have been stressing unity.
However, the Nice attack led the campaign to announce that it would indefinitely delay the announcement out of respect for the victims. But the clock was still ticking for Pence in Indianapolis, prompting the need to still announce before the re-election filing deadline at noon Friday. Missing the deadline would have only further confirmed a running mate pick that the campaign was apparently trying (and failing) to keep under wraps until the last possible minute.
What this resulted in was a hot mess. Following Thursday night’s attack, Trump could have yet come out Friday morning to present a strong, sober two-man team set up to tackle the global jihadist threat. But the Trump campaign decided to delay its official announcement out of respect for the victims in France. Displaying appropriate reverence—understandable. The next morning, however, Trump off-handedly tweeted out the announcement and a discombobulated, unprepared-looking message rollout marked the natal hours of Trump-Pence 2016.
Indeed, as shown by a Clinton campaign video released shortly after the tweet and the current ownership of trumppence.gop, Trump’s detractors seemed more ready for the formal announcement than the Trump campaign itself.
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In fact, according to a report from CNN, Trump was so uncertain about picking Pence, that he asked advisors if there was any way out of it Thursday night. Unfortunately, if the presumptive wanted to keep his options open until the eleventh hour, his surrogates did a phenomenal job of closing them for him, only adding to the chaos and confusing surrounding the choice.
Scoop: @realDonaldTrump was so unsure about @mike_pence that around midnight last night he asked top aides if he could get out of it
— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) July 15, 2016
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- Discussion
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Trumps VP announcement was anything BUT yuge, and points to potential future problems https://t.co/9YNH4SFMjJ
— Nate Madden (@NateMadden_IV) July 15, 2016
Trump was working on Cruz, but Cruz thought it would look opportunistic, and hypocritical.
Cruz is probably right.
Any association of Cruz with Trump will cost Cruz re-election to the Senate and permanently damage his political future. I’d like to think Ted Cruz wouldn’t be so foolish as to throw it all away for the VP slot or any other promise made by almighty Donnie.
But whatever happens at the convention — I will be disappointed but not deterred. Trump will never have my vote.
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