Donald Trump just tapped his polar opposite for VP. Big mistake.

When he ought to be figuring out how to appeal to the broad American electorate, Trump is still acting as though his most urgent task is to persuade Republican primary voters to get behind him

Mike Pence and Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Photo Illustration | Images courtesy Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images, REUTERS/Tami Chappel)

Just imagine the sighs of relief that Donald Trump's now-confirmed decision to name Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) as his running mate must have caused in his campaign headquarters. Not the bully-turned handmaid Chris Christie, currently enjoying approval ratings in the 20s back in New Jersey; not the widely reviled Newt Gingrich, who famously engineered Bill Clinton's impeachment while he himself was cheating on his wife; and not Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the Alabama senator with, let's just say, a complicated racial history. Instead, Trump selected the most boring of the candidates on the short list of people who were willing to run with him. I think I speak for all journalists when I say that we are deeply saddened to be deprived of the incandescent splendor that a Trump-Gingrich ticket would have been.

Apparently, Trump's senior staff and advisors were in a panic earlier this week because they thought their candidate was leaning away from Pence and toward Christie; this particularly bothered Trump's son-in-law and confidant Jared Kushner, since when Christie was a prosecutor he put Kushner's father in prison for some white-collar crimes. If the reports are accurate, the impetuous, imperious Trump was on the verge of doing something foolish, but for once more sensible voices pulled him back from the edge and convinced him to make a less risky choice.

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Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman is a senior writer with The American Prospect magazine and a blogger for The Washington Post. His writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines, and web sites, and he is the author or co-author of four books on media and politics.