Why is Nikki Haley (still) running?
You’re forgiven if you’re one of the millions (tens of millions?) of Americans who are wondering the same thing, the former Trump U.N. Ambassador and governor of South
Carolina seemingly having hung around much longer than sane folks – those who actually care about election results and numbers – would’ve considered a more-than-apropos time for her to step away from the event stage and withdraw into the background to do… well, whatever it is she does when she’s not traveling the country talking about how much Donald Trump needs to be defeated by his own people.
Needless to say, a plethora of theories have been advanced to try and explain why Haley persists, mostly involving maintenance of her own enormous ego (and those of her obtuse Never Trump establishment donor class backers) or, occasionally, someone will speak out and pay credence to her increasingly lonely windmill-chasing crusade to “save the country” or something like that.
Her pathetic poll position notwithstanding, poor darling Nikki keeps going from media appearance to media appearance spreading her anti-Trump venom as though she doesn’t have a care in the world and absolutely nothing is going on outside her own little bubble, not the least of which is an eternal struggle by fellow Republicans to get something done to squelch the flow of illegal aliens into this country, a not-so-slow flood of human disease (real and otherwise) that’s ruining what’s left of America’s once-great cities.
The steady torrent of uninvited and unwanted alien organic matter reminded me a little of a recent viewing of the movie Titanic (for the umpteenth time) when the famously doomed ship finally splits apart and the ocean rushes uninhibited through the gaping hole in the hull. Yes, that fast.
To make matters worse, if that’s even possible, Haley doesn’t care if her mission is harming Donald Trump’s ability to win this year’s election and succeed the obviously deteriorating-by-the-minute president senile Joe Biden.
“Haley has stayed in the GOP nomination race despite the former president’s commanding position and intensifying intraparty pressure for her to get out. The longer Haley highlights Trump’s faults—as she is increasingly doing—and refuses to concede, the greater the potential she might tarnish him among general election swing voters who, polls show, are more drawn to her than him.
“The former South Carolina governor, who was also the first United Nations ambassador in Trump’s administration, cites another reason she isn’t worried about collateral damage: ‘I’m going to win,’ she said without hesitation when pressed on whether she is harming the party’s prospects in November. ‘I’m strengthening the party because I bring more people into the Republican Party, instead of pushing people away like Trump.’
“Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida [last week] that he doesn’t care if Haley continues in the race. ‘It’s bad for the party. I think it’s actually bad for her, too,’ he said. While Haley’s quest for the nomination appears quixotic to some, she is getting enough donor money to keep her in the game as her campaign increasingly embraces an insurgent mentality.”
Insurgent? Insurgent? Insurgent against what? Is it Trump, or the tens of millions of ardent MAGA agenda backers who would chew off their left arms to get their candidate in the Oval Office again?
Any rebel commander understands that a true insurgency cannot survive without popular support, and that’s the one thing poor Nikki Haley doesn’t have. It’s a well-known fact that Haley is making the rounds begging independents and potential crossover Democrats to help her campaign, and that’s not something a true insurgent would ever do – i.e., beg the dispirited and the enemy to aid in the exalted cause.
The fact is, no one, and I mean no one, would pay any attention to Haley now if she weren’t engaged in an intra-party struggle with the media’s archfiend, Donald Trump. Haley is, in essence, a political parasite, a worthless organism that feeds off its host without offering anything of life-sustaining value to the thing (in this case, the 2024 political conversation).
Nikki is like a barnacle on a very oblivious whale. Or, she’s akin to a minor league baseball prospect who fans were excited about during spring training, and thought she might even “make the team”, but subsequently was demoted and is now riding the bench in Rookie League after hitting .100 for the first two months.
Perhaps even worse, there is no shot at redemption for Nikki, either, since there’s no way on the Lord’s green earth that Republican voters are going to switch allegiance to her side quickly enough to allow her to compete for the GOP nomination. Trump could be completely incapacitated and he’d still probably get enough support to best Haley. Does this make Trump that invincible, or Nikki just that pathetic?
Haley has become 2024’s version of John Kasich, the 2016 Republican presidential candidate who fell so head-over-heels in love with himself that he kept his name in the primary hopper until his money completely dried up. You may recall Kasich left the race a few days after Ted Cruz did the same, making the inevitable, well, inevitable.
Though at least it could be said that Kasich won one state – his native Ohio – whereas Haley won’t come close to finishing first anywhere. Her best chance for a top finish was in New Hampshire, or in the Nevada primary last week where she was competing against “None of these candidates” – and still came in second by thirty-three points.
What? Republican voters would rather have no one than Haley? And here she is, telling audiences that Americans don’t want Trump or senile Joe, either. But current polls showing a large majority of Americans desiring something other than a Trump-Biden rematch are one, somewhat irrelevant and two, bound to start sliding towards accepting a Trump candidacy as the country’s domestic and international stature continues to erode and Biden’s mental instability becomes all the more evident (as was demonstrated last Thursday night).
Why will this happen? It’s human nature. Whenever anyone is confronted with an either/or decision, the worse one of the choices begins to look, the more attractive the other one appears. It’s a glaring example of “Compared to Candidate X, Candidate Y’s not lookin’ so bad now, is he?”
Nikki will find it more difficult to argue that Trump is so awful and unbalanced and “dangerous” when Joe Biden is being called “elderly” with a “poor memory” by his own people. Is Donald Trump the true enemy here, or is it the bumbling idiot currently calling the nation’s policy shots?
Lest we return to the most basic question presented earlier: Why is Nikki Haley (still) running?
As is evident from her quotes contained in McCormick’s report, Haley has apparently deemed herself Republican dictator, since she doesn’t give a hoot if her campaign damages Trump, which ultimately equates to wounding the country. In a Nikki Haley presidency, she would brazenly appoint herself to every position. Talk about a dictator.
Can’t you see this scenario now? Haley’s Secretary of State visits her in the Oval Office and hopes to discuss the situation in the Middle East. Suddenly, President Nikki gets up from her chair, walks out of the room and declares, “I’m the president, secretary of state, secretary of defense and supreme court all in one! I command the bureaucracy and I don’t care if my dictates damage the party’s chances in Congress! Let them eat cake!”
There’s been enough such cake consumed this campaign season to last a lifetime. By now, Haley’s delusions about being able to defeat Trump for the Republican nomination coupled with professions of apathy regarding Trump’s potential fate have made it clear that she no longer considers herself as having a political career. Again, perhaps she’s decided, as this year’s version of John Kasich, that her best future potential is as a speaker at some distant Democrat national convention, where attendees and media grandees will slobber over her “principles” and willingness to cross the partisan aisle to benefit the nation.
A Haley 2028 candidacy will have already earned the enmity of the entire MAGA movement, which is now the predominant force in Republican politics. The Bush wing of the GOP has been all-but permanently displaced by the Trump-ites who have, in turn, refocused the party into more of an America-First middle class/anti-big government party than it ever was before.
Ronald Reagan won the so-called “Reagan Democrats” in his campaigns for the White House, but many of those folks went back over to the other side when the GOP establishment (as epitomized by George H.W. Bush) reasserted control of the party machinery. The Bush family’s “kinder, gentler conservatism” and “compassionate conservatism” wasn’t what conservatives were looking for.
They wanted an aggressive, true advocate for the notion of America First policy, both overseas and at the southern border. Donald Trump seized on the notion, and the movement is now bigger than just one man – or woman.
Who knows, if Haley is so into touting her gender everywhere she goes, perhaps someone should fashion a GOP version of a wedding “unity candle” and suggest to Nikki that she offer it to Trump once she does get out of the race to try and present the right message to those low-information-type voters who care about temperament and tweets over actual policies.
But more likely, she’ll just end her career as unloved and un-unified.
For those wondering why Nikki Haley is still running for president, they won’t have long waiting for some sort of response. As soon as the math becomes impossible (in terms of delegates won) for Haley to continue, her money and media attention will dry up completely, and she’ll then just be like a lonely old spin-meister left at the political altar of life. Don’t feel sympathy for her.
Note: Happy 90th birthday, mom! No one becomes great without great mentors and teachers. Thanks for setting a terrific example!
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2024 presidential election