Rebuilding Rob

As a staunch liberal snowflake, Nikki Haley fascinates me in the same way that a trainwreck does. She doesn’t quite have the same, “deer in the headlights” look that Sara Palin did, but she has more than her share of head-scratching moments during this Presidential campaign, like when she said that America “has never been a racist country“. She had another similar flub where she failed to mention slavery as a cause of the Civil War, an incident I posted about here. There was a time, not too long ago, where moments like those would have been the end of one’s political campaign. Of course, that was in the time Before Trump. Just ask Howard Dean

I was living on South Carolina when Haley ran for governor about 15 years ago. As a Republican, I didn’t pay her much attention, until then-State Senator Jake Knotts called both her and President Obama “ragheads”. This certainly garnered some of my sympathy for Haley. Voting for her was out of the question for me; for all the good that would do considering that South Carolina is the OG of red states.

I’m not 100% negative about Haley. After all, it was Haley who, as governor, signed the bill to remove the Confederate from the South Carolina Capital building in 2015. This was largely in response to the Charleston church massacre, a mass shooting that took place one month prior in Charleston. From a political stand-point, this bill was a political lay-up; a simple gesture that didn’t force Haley to take a revolutionary stand on the heels of an horrible catastrophe. But the fact remains that no other South Carolina Governor had taken this step. State politicians were perfectly content with the Confederate flag flying on the Capital dome as late as 2015. Perhaps as Luke Skywalker might say “there is still good in her”.

Haley’s strategy in running for President again in 2024 has been a perplexing one. Haley served under Trump as UN Ambassador from 2017-2019. Even then, it was obvious that she still had higher political aspirations. She has to be realizing, as she and so many other Presidential learned in four years ago and back in 2016 – that Trump is a political juggernaut. At this point, Trump is running his campaign almost as if he is an incumbent President himself.

Why is she still in the race?

As of this writing, Nikki Haley is continuing her Presidential campaign, despite losing the primary in her home state yesterday to Trump. Not only that, but Haley has yet to win a single state primary again “the Donald”. It doesn’t take a political pundit to tell you that if you can’t win a primary election in your home state, then your campaign is toast. So why is Haley still running?

The logical answer is that Haley is presenting herself as a sensible Republican candidate to Trump. The hope being that she would appeal to the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) the “Never-Trumpers”, and the disenfranchised people who are no longer “Ridin’ with Biden” and/or undecided voters. This could be a good political tactic, however Haley is not doing enough to differentiate herself from Trump. Sure, she’ll come out and say that January 6 was a bad day. It doesn’t take a radical to say that. In my opinion, she needs to offer an actual alternative to Trump, not Trump Lite. She needs to be more brazen, like in this speech, where she called Congress “the most privileged nursing home in the country”

There are A LOT of lifelong-Republicans, generally good people who just happed to see the way to fixing Washington differently than I do – who have said that Trump is too much and they cannot bring themselves to vote for him. In many ways, their political party abandoned them. It’s as if the management as Arkham Asylum decided one day to relinquish the keys to The Joker.

By all we, all but know how this Republican campaign will play itself out. Trump will get the party nomination – again. He and Biden will run against each other, again – tacking another 4 year onto their records as the oldest Presidential candidates ever.

Trump’s legal problems could be the wild card in this year’s elections. If he goes to trial and if he gets convicted before the election, it would put our country into uncharted political territory. Nikki Haley may be trying to stay in the race long enough to take over the proverbial ship at that point.

That’s way to much Republican strategy for me. I need a shower…

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts…

• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

The artic le “the Curious Case of Nikki Haley” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.