Donald Trump has announced Governor of Indiana Mike Pence as his vice-presidential running mate, after he was officially sworn in as the Republican presidential candidate last week.
Politically, Pence is a ‘safe’ choice for Trump, due to his vast legislative and executive experience. However, it is an interesting choice considering Pence originally backed Ted Cruz in the primaries. Pence also openly criticised Trump for wanting to ban Muslims entering the United States. With Trump choosing Pence, who is known to be religious and conservative, it is not a move to broaden his general election appeal but rather an attempt to get Republicans to feel comfortable with Trump himself. Choosing Pence will allow Trump to also gather support from evangelical voters.
There is no doubt there will be scrutiny towards Pence’s political views, just as there has been with Trump. Pence is strongly guided by religious views, signing the ‘religious freedom bill’ into Indiana law that strictly discriminated against the LGBT community, as well as signing into law one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the US.
According to the NY times, Trump eschewed the teleprompter during the announcement despite aides’ attempts to discipline Trump’s speeches. Trump used the opportunity to again attack Hillary Clinton, describing her as a foreign policy puppeteer, again reinforcing that his own campaign is almost wholly based on discrediting other people. This negative aspect of Trump’s campaign was brought up in a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Trump and Pence, their first interview together. Pence seemed awkward and barely got two words in the entire time, and when asked about the negative attitude of Trump’s campaign and the ‘name calling’, the question was somewhat avoided and Trump gave the excuse that the two of them were ‘different’ people, proceeding to call Hillary Clinton a “crook” and a “liar”.
Trump and Pence have had to scrap and redesign their campaign logo as it appeared as the ‘T’ in Trump’s name entered the hole of the ‘P’ in Pence’s name, an act representative of penetrative sex . The logo caused their campaign embarrassment, particularly due to the fact they both oppose marriage equality.