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Home » Why is Nikki Haley running for president?

Why is Nikki Haley running for president?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here are the reasons Haley herself gives:

“It’s time for a new generation of leadership,” Haley stated.

Yeah, but Ron DeSantis is even younger

“[Other countries] all think we can be bullied, kicked around. You should know this about me, I don’t put up with bullies, and when you kick back it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.”

Sorry, but even without high heels, Trump would certainly be a stronger deterrent.

But I actually don’t think Haley is running for president at all. I think she is positioning herself to become somebody’s vice-presidential nominee.

Comments

Why is Nikki Haley running for president? — 36 Comments

  2. Of course she is not seeking a presidential nomination, but angling for a nice job if the GOP wins in 2024. She has lost me, forever, with this silly,vain game.

  3. I like Nikki Haley but I do not want her to take votes away from DeSantis which will enable Trump to win the nomination and lose in 2024. Hayley was a great UN Ambassador by the way.

  4. If it’s the VP slot Haley is angling for, 1) she ticks the same diversity boxes as Kamala; and 2) she couldn’t possibly do worse than Mrs. Emhoff.

  5. If we could break down the conservative voter base

    1). Never Trump: Will never vote for Trump under any circumstances. In the event that Trump becomes that nominee, will instead vote for whomever the Dem candidate is, or throw out a token vote for some dark horse, or will just not vote at all.

    2). Prefer Not Trump: Would rather not have Trump as the Republican candidate, but will vote for him in the event that he is the nominee.

    3). Prefer Trump: Want Trump as the nominee but would vote for any (or most) potential Republican nominees in the event that Trump isn’t the nominee.

    4). Ever Trump: Only want Trump and will either not vote at all or write in Trump in the General in the event that Trump is not the nominee.

    You could subdivide the group 2 people into those who have a preference for a specific not-Trump candidate. I suspect that Desantis would have a plurality among the not-Trumps. But the issue seems to be that even though there’s been a few polls that put Desantis ahead of Trump in a one-on-one situation, Trump wins the second another not-Trump appears as a choice.

  6. So tired of what are essentially nonentities and their “vanity runs,” as they announce that they are “thinking about,” or going to run for President.

    If you have a realistic chance to win, run, otherwise, just shut your trap and stay on the sidelines, so you aren’t a weakening distraction from the main event.

  7. In another time, Haley would be a good choice. But the left is vicious and she’s shown no sign of being willing to fight back like Trump or DeSantis.

  8. Haley would be a perfect pre-Obama Republican presidential candidate. Post-Obama, I don’t think we can afford a Republican president who is a squish on social issues like DEI and other matters of wokeness. I’m not saying that Haley is a squish, I just don’t know that she isn’t. I know that DeSantis is no squish. (And although Trump’s faults are legion, squish is not one of them.)

    Haley could potentially convince me. I’m interested in hearing more about Tim Scott too. DeSantis/Scott or Scott/DeSantis might work.

    As for the nomination process, I think it might be the case that everyone is fighting the last war. There were an absurdly high number of candidates in the 2016 GOP primary, true, but it was also very odd that so many candidates stayed in the race long after it became clear that their candidacies weren’t going anywhere. (I hope that Trump sends Christmas cards to Jeb! and John Kasich every year.)

    For 2024, I think it will be fine if we have six to eight serious candidates, winnowed down to two or three after NH. I have no problem with Haley, Scott, Sununu, etc. getting in and giving it a shot, as long as they get out promptly if they don’t get traction.

  10. She’s a former state representative, former governor, and former ambassador to the UN. Seems like a perfectly fine resume for a candidate to me. What’s wrong with “I think I’d be good at the job?” Why does a candidate always have to have a freakin’ narrative?

    And you’re not doing this Neo, but why is it wrong for Trump to take shots at DeSantis because he sees him as a political threat but perfectly fine for people to crap all over Haley seemingly because they think she’s a threat to DeSantis?

    Mike

  11. “If you have a realistic chance to win, run”

    Who thought Trump had a realistic chance to win? Why do people so often want to short-circuit or rig the process instead of just letting it play out?

    Mike

  12. The more the merrier but she brings not much to the table she did agitate lincoln logger stuart stevens but besides that

  14. }}}I think she is positioning herself to become somebody’s vice-presidential nominee.

    Ding, Ding, and yeah, Ding.

    If DeSantis was willing to go for Veep with Trump, I’d think she has no chance at all for it, but given the current situation, it seems like she would be positioning herself for either one’s veep.

  15. }}} why is it wrong for Trump to take shots at DeSantis because he sees him as a political threat but perfectly fine for people to crap all over Haley seemingly because they think she’s a threat to DeSantis?

    This is going to depend on the nature of the shots. Trump’s shots vs. DeSantis have been relatively cheap. I haven’t paid enough attention to know about any made against Haley.

  16. DeSantis as VP: He seems to be a competent executive, and the VP really has no job other than breaking ties in the Senate. I can’t see him doing it.

  17. I don’t see this in the comments yet so… Any thoughts on how the base will react to her association with the World Economic Forum?

  18. My opinion it really doesn’t matter in 2024 who runs as Republican nomination. The 5 states who got swindled by mail fraud in 2020 and 2022 are going to get it again in 2024, nothing is changing in the states.
    Biggest point is DeSantis might be better staying home and showcasing what he can do there.

  19. I like Nikki, but unfortunately we need a street fighter out there. DeSantis is more of known quantity with a solid track record when it comes to battling DEI, Woke, and the media.

  24. Kate at 3:15pm nails it.

    And y’all stop it with the Scott talk. He is a fine Senator, but I fear there is focus on his skin, a GOP Obama (though ethical).

  26. It’s a grift. No money for also rans! Do not encourage this behavior by funding it.
    Also, they take up media space, confusing and diluting the message and being compared favorably to the candidates who actually can win. So selfish!

  27. She could conceivably get the VP slot, but the real reason she’s running is to get paid speaking engagements and cable TV appearances after the election. Same as Bolton. If such characters did not run for president, they would be forgotten and have to think about finding a real job.

  28. 1) “No one has mentioned my name in a long time so here’s a way to get it mentioned and some people are willing to spend their money to get my name mentioned.”

    2) “I like having a government job, and I don’t have one at the moment, so if my name gets mentioned a lot I’ll probably be able to get one from whomever wins the 2024 election.”

    Haley is, at best, a third tier candidate; I will offer, however, that she will probably get more primary votes in South Carolina than Lindsey Graham.

    Which ain’t sayin’ much…..

    Haley would make a good cabinet-level secretary (which may actually be her ultimate goal), especially of a federal agency that desperately needs to be shut down. Which is almost all of them, but that’s a separate issue and a different discussion. Betsy DeVos should have spent her four years shutting DoE down and salting the earth where the building stood instead of trying to make it run more efficiently; I’d vote for giving Haley that task.

  30. Kurt Schlichter has Haley’s number:

    “The big problem with Nikki Haley for the Republicans is the same as the big problem with Kamala Harris for the Democrats. They are both over-ambitious mediocrities who believe in nothing except the fierce urgency of their own advancement. And the bases of both parties know it. Kamala is, astonishingly, less popular than her senile superior. Nikki Haley is polling at about 2%, and those 2% are drunk. No one wants either one of them to be president – they are both hoping to make up for their unpopularity with the sheer intensity of their wanting it for themselves.

    Policy is secondary for both, really. Like liberalism was for Kamala, conservatism is the fake hobby horse Nikki hopes to use to ride into DC and a gig as veep before taking the big step into the Oval Office down the road. But there’s no evidence she actually believes in conservatism as we understand it in 2023. It’s a consultant-driven act resurrected from 2003. She wilted in front of the SJWs when she could have told them to pound sand. She’s awkwardly hawkish in a simulacrum of what she thinks Republicans should be. She has shown none of the contempt for the establishment that Trump has, nor has she built a track record of owning the libs as Ron DeSantis has. But policy is really beside the point for her. She just wants to be president someday, like her double Kamala. And we need to stop them both.”

    https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2023/02/16/no-to-nikki-harris-n2619596

    “Contempt for the establishment” is a required qualification for this job. A proven track record of translating that contempt into effective policy is a big plus.

  31. Don’t know if she has any chance and pretty certain she doesn’t have the necessary qualifications or toughness (and it may, in fact, just be a plan to get the VP nomination)…
    …but comparing her with Harris is just plain, flat-out wrong.

    OTOH, I respect and admire Tulsi Gabbard, at least in her more recent incarnation; but once again I’m not sure if she has the qualifications or the experience—though she’s shown she’s tough and doesn’t back away from confronting rogues—she certainly is courageous. She’s also smart and speaks well.
    Though who knows if she’ll throw her hat into the ring…

  32. Every presidential year, (despite what they might say [even to themselves]) some candidates run to gain name recognition and begin putting their message out with an eye to the future. If he runs, Vivek Ramaswamy would be a good example.

    I don’t think DeSantis is in that mode. If he goes for it, it will be for real and right now.

  33. DJF at 8:32 has it nailed. A lot of also-ran candidates are simply jockeying for that sweet flow of establishment donor cash. It’s a legal way of laundering money to those who have ‘taken the ticket’ and shown their willingness to do the establishment’s bidding as middle-managers and potential future bosses.

    In 2016, the consultants all assumed Trump was a vanity candidate and ignored him until it was too late. The pros expected the abundance of niche candidates to drop out one by one as they each passed their base constituency’s primaries, leaving an establishment squish (Jeb) as the last man standing.

    Now, the pros are expecting Desantis to be the last man standing and the never-Trump consensus candidate. But the country-club ladies who have been running GOP events since Bush the Elder don’t talk to their plumbers or electricians about politics, so they have no idea how deeply the base is alienated by the party elite’s betrayal of working Americans. Haley (or anyone else touting globalism, offshoring, and foreign wars) is faking all her concern for Trump’s voters, and they know it.

  34. Betsy DeVos should have spent her four years shutting DoE down and salting the earth where the building stood instead of trying to make it run more efficiently; I’d vote for giving Haley that task.

    The Education Department was incorporated by an act of Congress. She did not have the discretion to shut it down.

  35. I get the impression that most of Neo’s commenters live in South Carolina. Or maybe just run their mouths for pleasure.

  36. Pingback:Instapundit » Blog Archive » OH, PSHAW. AT BEST SHE’S RUNNING FOR VICE-PRESIDENT:  Why is Nikki Haley running for president?…

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