Day Three Of The Republican Convention Got A Little Wild

Nate, yes, his speech is a bit stilted. But who would have thought Mike Pence would bring (a couple, self-deprecating) jokes to an otherwise focused-on-threats night? I think it leavens things a bit.

OK, I went down to the floor to get both sides of the story on the reaction to Cruz’s speech — New York vs. Texas. Nicholas Langworthy from Buffalo, New York, was sitting front row, center and called the situation “pretty contentious” when the delegation didn’t hear Cruz endorse Trump. He also said their booing response was “pretty organic.” He said he had presumed Cruz would endorse in a prime-time speech, just as former rival Scott Walker did. Instead, Langworthy said, “Ted served himself.” Over on the other side of the floor, Texan Johnny Lopez from Irving actually seemed to agree with the disappointed New Yorker. “I think it was a general consensus of people who were booing,” he said, indicating that it came from all around the floor. “There were even some here in the Texas delegation that were booing.” Lopez was sympathetic to Cruz’s defiant stance, though. “I would be hurt too if someone talked about my wife like that,” he said, referring to Trump’s derogatory comments about Heidi Cruz. “But that’s politics.”

I thought Mike Pence was a relatively good choice for Trump, given his alternatives. And I suppose this is a conventionally effective political speech. But it’s so aww-shucks earnest and hokey, a speech that could have been delivered 10 or 20 or 50 years ago, that it squares very oddly with Trump’s post-modern approach to politics. Maybe Trump and Pence can be effective individually, but their joint appearances have gone pretty awkwardly, and it’s easy to understand why.