Yeah. Well. Of course. But for Nikki Haley to be their nominee will require the Republicans to be rational enough to allow it. In the event, probably too few GOP leaders will be able to overcome their misogyny, but neither that nor the assumption that she'd make a terrible president should obscure the fact that it would be a clever move for the Republicans to nominate her. Good presidential candidates and good presidents are not necessarily cut from the same cloth. As a candidate, she'd be hard to beat.
Haley's articulate enough, and she cleans up good, as we used to say of someone making themselves presentable. She has a more solid record than any of the Senate blowhards who will offer themselves: she has business experience, including as a CFO; she was treasurer and then president of the National Association of Women Business Owners; she
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| Her Master's Voice |
In addition, because she agreed to serve Trump, the party whackos will give her a pass: the moneybags never had a problem with her. She demonstrated just enough independence from Trump at the UN to be plausible as an alternative. Now she's jumping ship just as a sea of troubles is washing over the president's gunwales (one way or another Trump himself is likely headed for the lifeboat: impeachment in the remote event the Democrats control the Senate and, even more remotely, man up; evidence of criminal activity -- from Mueller's or other investigations -- so incontestable the president will resign in exchange for immunity or pardon; a stroke; or retirement to his dacha in Mar-A-Lago so to gaze at leisure into gilded mirrors at the greatest president ever).
Finally, as both female and off-white, Haley cuts into two electoral assets the Democrats tend to fetishize (these advantages, if that's what they really are -- it's still the economy, stupid..., these advantages will evaporate if the Dems nominate an elderly white male). If it happened, her presidency would be about as good for women as Obama's was for African-Americans, but inevitably she would get a measurable amount of campaign support because of her gender and the Democrats would lose their "party of women" props in the process.
Nikki Haley's politics are terrible -- the best that can be said is that she evolved on the confederate flag issue under political pressure and she demonstrated a degree of independence on women's issues, but on other matters her policy positions are hard right: she was the Tea Party candidate for governor with a rousing endorsement from Sarah Palin, she is hostile to unions, she opposed the Affordable Care Act, she is against gun control, she has consistently voted for bills that restrict abortion, as governor she slashed the state budget at the expense of social programs, and she resigned her UN job one-day after being accused of accepting while in office a series of free private luxury plane flights from three South Carolina businessmen and GOP donors. She can't be held directly responsible for promoting Trump's anti-human rights agenda at the UN, because she was just doing her job, but she can be blamed for taking the job. Still, having shown a willingness to work across the aisle as legislator and governor, she will be hard to demonize. She'd be a formidable candidate for the Democrats to run against.
The next president will be a woman. Elizabeth Warren or Nikki Haley: Your choice.
The rest of the story:
Nikki Haley to Resign as Trump’s Ambassador to the U.N. by Maggie Haberman (New York Times)
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