OP referring to Pence.
Yeah. But in that case, the sentence would need to be rewritten.
He needs to be in the background like other mediocre VP picks.
Depends here if the commenter means to say the "VP picks" are mediocre, or if the VP himself is mediocre, and in that case, he might have left a letter out of the last word. (Just guessing here.) ;-)
But for myself, I stand firm on "protegé/protegée". That one was FTA. The "pick" in the article is clearly attributed to Pres. Trump, not VP Pence.