Excerpted from a recent editorial in The Washington Post

As a conservative crusader, Mike Pence is an incongruous match for the ideologically flexible Donald Trump, who named the Republican Indiana governor as his running mate Friday.

It is likely that Trump chose Pence because the Hoosier is a more likeable version of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Trump's vanquished adversary. During his 12 years in Congress, Pence mounted one of the many right-wing campaigns to unseat Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, as the leader of House Republicans. Boehner later co-opted Pence by appointing him to the House leadership.

Pence's policy record suggests he will indeed appeal to right-wing voters — but perhaps not many others. He waged war against Planned Parenthood while in Congress, saying in 2011 that he was willing to shut down the government in order to defund the organization. A staunch opponent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, he favored a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman. He pressed for a constitutional amendment that would cap federal spending at 20 percent of the economy, which would badly hamstring the government as baby boomers begin drawing retirement benefits. He also voted for and defended free-trade deals of the sort Trump has inaccurately blamed for hollowing out the economy.

Pence ran for governor as a fiscal conservative. He has shown some practicality, taking federal money to expand Medicaid in his state under Obamacare as other GOP governors held out. His defining decision, however, was signing into law a "religious freedom" bill that encouraged discrimination against LGBT people. He followed it up with a bill restricting abortions in Indiana. And while he condemned Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, he also tried to suspend the settlement of Syrian refugees in his state.

Pence has called himself "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order." But he has agreed to run with an uncharitable man who habitually insults minorities, religions and vulnerable people, who wants to economically isolate the United States and who regularly displays his ignorance of the Constitution and policy. As he campaigns with Trump, Pence will have to add "hypocrite" to his list of attributes.