Mike Pence Delivered A Speech Donald Trump Desperately Needed At The RNC

Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate, Mike Pence, gave the keynote address on the Republican Convention‘s third night of festivities. He followed a few moments after Ted Cruz clearly refused to endorse his former rival, who is evidently still a current foe. The rest of the Trump kids sat in stony silence as they realized what was happening, and journalists indicated that Cruz went off script. Eric Trump soon followed and pretended nothing was amiss, but the crowd carried great animosity for Cruz’s defiant move.

For his part, Pence stands as the ideal candidate to soften Trump and lends ticket appeal to the Republican establishment. After one awkward 60 Minutes interview, Pence has been turned out into the wild. Paul Ryan’s introduction of Pence as a “Reagan conservative” shows more approval than the House Speaker has displayed during the entire election season.

Pence then took the podium as possibly the most vanilla candidate of this election season. Yet he delivered the speech that Trump so desperately needed to win over those GOP voters who have resisted all this time. By the end, a thrilled crowd chanted, “We want Trump.”

To begin, Pence used his customary self-introduction: “I’m a Christian, conservative and Republican in that order.” He then admitted, “Honestly I never thought I’d be standing here,” Pence said. “I thought I’d be spending this evening with all my friends of the great state of Indiana.” He didn’t attack Clinton too much (compared to the rest of the convention speakers) and mainly addressed her as “Secretary of the Status Quo.” Pence praised Trump’s children (“you can’t fake great kids”) and then moved on to address his new boss. Pence told the audience, “Now, he can be a little rough with politicians on the stage, and you can bet we’ll see this again.” But he spun this as a positive for the “man of no pretense.”

Pence then echoed the words of many Trump supporters: “He started saying what everyone was thinking anyway.” Pence promised, “The change will be huge” when Trump secures America’s borders, protect vets and law enforcement, and then the country will “start winning again.” This straight-up verbiage was also straight-up dull, but it’s a speech that could actually unify the party. Pence appears to be content to push policy points while his running mate will continue the performance art routine. Ultimately, choosing Pence was the smartest move Trump has made in over a year.

Well, Trump loved the speech so much that he went in for an air kiss.