WASHINGTON _ Mike Pence appears to check virtually all the boxes that Donald Trump signaled he'd put on his vice presidential search form:
He has a credible record of executive accomplishment, pushing to enactment the largest tax cuts in Indiana history and an elimination of the state's estate tax during his term as governor.
Before that he had a diverse and lengthy experience as a congressional playmaker during six terms in the House, having headed the caucus of the most conservative members and also held the No. 3 position in the Republican leadership.
His rhetoric has a punchiness that may fairly be labeled "attack dog" in style, but he's also prefers the sort of messaging discipline and cool-headed tone of voice _ "Rush Limbaugh on decaf," in his own words _ that Trump hyperkinetically eschews.
He counterbalances Trump's weaknesses in other ways. From his time on the Hill and on the executive committee of the Republican Governors Association, he is plugged in to many of the wealthy GOP donors, Main Street advocates and Wall Street lobbyists with whom the presumptive nominee has rocky relations.
He knows about international affairs from his time on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where supporters of Israel view him as an unambiguously reliable ally.
His credentials in the eyes of grass-roots conservative and evangelicals approach the unimpeachable, whereas the tea party types and the religious right continue to view Trump with considerable suspicion. His mantra at the Capitol was that he was "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican _ in that order."
That prioritization did not always sit well with his colleagues, either on the ideological edges of the House GOP or in the leadership suites, because it led him to some iconoclastic positioning that sometimes displeased the hard right and other times annoyed the establishment. But he was reliably able to persuade critics that his views were consistent with his principles, and was broadly popular in both GOP camps by the time he left the Capitol for the governor's mansion in 2012.
Pence's tenure has produced approval ratings well below 50 percent this summer, so it made sense for him to grab this 11th hour opportunity to forgo a trough race for re-election in favor of a shot at a much bigger prize.
