That’s not the way things appeared on Thursday, as the story of his selection moved from firm reports that he had picked Pence as his running mate to claims that Trump had made no call to the governor inviting him to be on the ticket to reports that the call had in fact been made, buttressed by unconfirmed reports that Pence was on a plane heading for New York, though the candidate was still in California.
Trump knows the value of a good show, but this was hardly what a skilled impresario would have produced. At times, his vice presidential selection process has been transparent. His short list has been evident to all — the three apparent finalists plus Gen. Michael Flynn and perhaps Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions. Trump said there were others, a few surprises, though none truly surfaced…
But at the moment when he needed clarity, everything turned opaque, muddy and messy. Or at least that’s the way it appeared. Late Thursday, after a day in which he was invisible, Trump spoke twice with Fox News. But he did nothing that helped to clarify things. He praised Pence, Gingrich and Christie but insisted that no final decision had been made. Why Pence was in New York he would not say — if Pence actually was in New York.
A skillful campaign should have been able to grab hold of the story as it seemed to spin away Thursday. But there were neither hard confirmations nor true denials, only the claim that no final decision had been made. But that’s a dodge campaigns have used in the past even when everything was already in motion for a vice presidential rollout. Maybe that will turn out to be the case. Or maybe Trump will change his mind.
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