After Donald Trump's somewhat clumsy introduction of Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate, during which Trump spent most of the time talking about himself and "crooked" Hillary Clinton, Priebus said today that he expects Trump to debut his presidential side during this week's convention in Cleveland.
"I think Thursday night's a critical night for him, delivering a great speech, the balloon drop, the people in this country saying, 'I can see Donald Trump being in the White House. I think he's presidential,'" Priebus told ABC's "This Week" today.
Yet the usual trappings of a presumptive nominee's most significant announcement were missing in the Manhattan hotel ballroom where a few hundred supporters gathered yesterday morning.
Nowhere in sight were "Trump/Pence" signs, for example, and Trump's decision had been tweeted the previous day, stealing any sense of surprise from the event. Choosing a venue in a state Trump has little chance of winning also broke with traditional politicking strategy.
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Trump and his new running mate appeared on stage together only briefly before Trump disappeared and Pence gave a speech that closely hewed to the populist themes that Trump has voiced, describing himself as "really just a small-town boy."
"The American people are tired," Pence said in remarks that included many of the same talking points that until recently he was using in his bid for re-election.
"We're tired of being told that this is as good as it gets. We're tired of having politicians in both parties in Washington, DC, telling us we'll get to those problems tomorrow."
Trump returned for a round of photos with the Trump and Pence families.
The lack of hoopla contrasted with Mitt Romney's introduction four years ago of running mate Paul Ryan on the deck of a Navy battleship, the USS Wisconsin, off the shore of swing-state Virginia.
The underwhelming rollout of the GOP ticket continued when Pence flew back home to Indiana without Trump. A few hundred people greeted him at a suburban Indianapolis airport hangar bereft of any "Trump-Pence" signs. He spoke for only a few minutes, telling the crowd that he and his family were headed home for "pizza night.