Donald Trump picked Indiana governor Mike Pence as his Vice Presidential running-mate.
Pence has been well-regarded by social and religious conservatives. That reputation was tarnished a bit recently when he first approved of a religious exemption for LGBT laws in his state, but then rescinded it when faced with pressure from corporate interests. He may have alienated both sides of the debate.
So does Trump’s choice of a conservative, Christian governor and former Congressman make you feel better about supporting him, or might it influence you to do so?
In other news, the effort by anti-Trump Republicans to free delegates to vote their conscience, rather than having to obey the results of their states’ primaries, has failed in the rules committee. So the way is clear for a Trump coronation in Cleveland, beginning Monday.
Details on both developments after the jump.
From Donald Trump selects Mike Pence as VP – CNNPolitics.com:
Donald Trump said Friday Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is his choice to be his running mate.
“I am pleased to announce that I have chosen Governor Mike Pence as my Vice Presidential running mate. News conference tomorrow at 11:00 A.M.,” the presumptive Republican nominee tweeted.CNN reported Thursday that Trump had called Pence and offered him the vice presidential slot on his ticket. Pence has accepted.The pick sets up a stark clash in styles: a brash presumptive nominee with a tendency to freelance into controversies alongside a cautious former congressional leader who’s stuck close to conservative orthodoxy since starting his career in talk radio.
From “NeverTrump is Nevermore,” NPR:
Late Thursday night, when the political world was consumed by yet another terrorist attack, as well as the last-minute confusion of Donald Trump’s vice presidential rollout, the #NeverTrump movement died its last death.
In a marathon 15-hour meeting, the Republican National Convention’s rules committee voted down proposals that would have freed up convention delegates to ignore their states’ primary and caucus results and vote for any candidate they wanted.
The outcome of the rules committee meeting means that Donald Trump is set to pick up the Republican nomination on the first ballot of the convention on Monday.
The “free the delegates” push had been the last-ditch effort of Trump opponents who, organizing under the #NeverTrump hashtag on social media, have tried approach after approach to topple Trump’s presidential campaign.
They initially failed in a push to keep the presumptive nominee under the 1,237 delegate mark he needed to clinch the GOP’s presidential spot on the first ballot in Cleveland.
Their last hope was to rewrite the convention rules in order to force a contested floor fight. This, in theory, could have opened the door for an alternate candidate to emerge at the convention and somehow leave Cleveland as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.
It was always going to be a longshot. Republican leaders had no interest in throwing the convention into the chaos of a floor fight and in the process, ignore the will of millions of Republican primary and caucus votes.
But the anti-Trump forces, led by Colorado delegate Kendal Unruh, only needed the support of a quarter of the 112-member panel’s votes to force their proposal to a vote in front of the full convention next week.
In vote after vote Thursday, it was clear they were short of that mark.
In the end, only 21 committee members voted to keep debating the “unbinding” language, before it was defeated by a voice vote.
