Donald Trump Seen Leaving Mike Pence's Place In Last Night's Dress
Donald Trump uses Awkward Handshake! It's not very effective!
As part of our ongoing coverage of Campaign 2016, Yr Wonkette has discovered an obscure contractual clause requiring us to cover Mike Pence, since everyone was saying for about 25 minutes Tuesday that the Indiana governor is definitely certainly absolutely maybe on Donald Trump's short list of vice presidential candidates. In a brief speech Tuesday in Westfield, Indiana, Pence skated through his short program, performing all the mandatory moves (a double Buckley, a triple Luntz, some low spins, and a Hillary Will Kill America) as part of his Veep tryout, and got generally good scores, especially from the East German judge.
In the space of a five-minute introduction for the short-thingered vulgarian, Pence praised Trump as "a fighter, a builder and a patriot," although he failed to mention Trump also speaks of the pompatous of love. Pence did his very best attempt to sound like a fitting Spiro Agnew for the increasingly Nixonian Republican nominee:
“As the proud father of a United States Marine, let me say from my heart we don’t need a president that took 13 hours to send help to Americans under fire,” Pence said. “Anyone who did that should be disqualified from ever being commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States of America.”
So there's a baldfaced lie about Benghazi off the checklist. Nicely done. What else ya got? How about some rightwing paranoid boilerplate, something about email, and the obligatory genuflection to Saint Ronald of Santa Barbara?
“I actually served in Congress with Bernie Sanders, and let me tell you, he's the nicest socialist I ever served with in Washington, D.C.,” Pence said, warming up to attack the former secretary of state. “Hillary and her party have been sliding so far to Bernie's leftist agenda it's hard to keep track of it. … [T]o paraphrase the director of the FBI, I think it would be 'extremely careless' to elect Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States.”
"Donald Trump understands the frustrations and the hopes of the American people like no other American leader in my lifetime since Ronald Reagan," Pence said in another instance. "The American people are tired ... of being told this is as good as it gets."
That was truly a vice-presidential quality joke, there. Yes, Pence sticks the landing, with nary a bobble. Nicely done! And what did the law-n-ordure candidate have to say about Pence? Is Mike Pence the One? Trump wasn't giving anything away: "I don't know if he's going to be your governor or your vice president, who the hell knows?"
Ooh, how about "neither"? "Neither" works for us!
Apart from that mention and a moment where Trump asked the crowd if they thought Pence would make a great V.P. ("Yes!"), Trump "rarely mentioned Pence during his speech," according to the Indianapolis Star, so it looks like Pence is getting every bit as much attention as any of Trump's other vice presidential prospects. So is he the guy we'll have to put up with? Maybe! Or maybe not! The Washington Post did a little veepstakes handicapping for us, and they note that while Pence enthusiastically endorsed Lyin' Ted, Lyin' Ted Cruz, the liar who Trump hated so much during the primaries, Pence is now doing his best Pavlovian slobbering all over the Great Man now, including a string of Tweets that prompted at least one smartass to insist Trump had stolen Pence's phone:
So he's got a strong "Loyal Lapdog" act going on, although it's still unclear whether Pence has it in him to out-Smithers Chris Christie when it comes to sycophancy. Pence is also facing a tough reelection fight in Indiana. If people really hate him a lot, that could be a selling point for Trump. Then again, just about all of Trump's short list candidates are widely despised by normal decent people, so who knows?
There's a whole lot of Veepspotting going on in Indiana Wednesday. Trump met with Pence at the governor's mansion Wednesday morning, although it's not clear whether Trump left with his hair and makeup all mussed. Did he remember to bring a toothbrush?
There's also this series of Hot Tweets from WaPo's Robert Costa:
Is this a vetting process? Or an orgy in the making? Do we really want to know, even? Protip to Newt: Remember, Donald usually stays in a suite on the top floors. Throwing pebbles at his window will not work.
[ WaPo / Indianapolis Star / Wapo / Wapo yet again]