The first big question of the White House race is going to be answered by Haley

The Case for a Democratic Candidate: The Ex-President’s Alternatives to the Democratic Nominee in the 2020 Presidential Election

One of the defining early questions of the 2024 presidential election seems about to be answered with some of the ex-president’s potential rivals for the Republican nomination making clear moves toward the race.

Haley’s expected campaign launch will highlight a political persona with considerable appeal as Republicans wonder how to broaden their coalition after their general election loss in 2020. Haley has an advantage as the former governor of a southern state that could be one of the most important in a presidential race and her career has been on a trajectory to a Presidential race for years. Her South Asian heritage would help the GOP win back women and more moderate voters, while her candidacy would bring historic potential to the Oval Office. She worked as the US ambassador to the UN under Trump and added some experience to her resume.

Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor has a good chance of being a Trump challenger. He has become a household name by attacking what he calls liberal orthodoxies in government and culture. After the legislative session in Florida ends, a campaign will probably not come for months.

Increasingly clear indications of several forming campaigns are notable because they appear to show that Trump, who has been the most influential force in the GOP ever since 2016, is not so prohibitively formidable that he cannot be challenged by serious rivals.

It would be too much to say that his rivals sense weakness given the former president’s bond with activists who decide primaries. But Trump’s so-so fundraising to date, his low-energy launch last year and his infrequent campaign appearances underscore his electoral liabilities, especially after his often disastrous midterm interventions.

Still, having multiple rivals would help Trump, as it did in 2016, since the winner-take-all nature of most Republican primaries allows a candidate with a mere plurality of votes to build up big delegate leads in a crowded field.

If Trump can split the opposition, he can win the primary but that isn’t a guarantee for the general election because the once-impeached president left Washington in disgrace after sparking a mob attack on the US Capitol.

What is the Vision for America? What Does Haley Want to Say About His Presidency and What Does He Want To Say About It?

I would ask what the vision was for America. What is Haley offering that is different from the Generic Republican that Donald Trump decided to become? She is selling the idea that she is somehow both distinct enough to separate herself from the former president she continues to support and similar enough to win the nomination with this Republican Party. I don’t buy it.

Ms. Haley, a former Rubio ’16 supporter and the child of Indian immigrants, is a darling of neoconservatives and a defender of Reagan’s continued relevance. Her announcement featured many of the old Reagan-Bush classics, if slightly remixed for today’s challenges. She said she had seen evil on the world stage, that she supported tax cuts, and that her country was the most free and greatest in the world.

Yet the most fundamental question that Haley will face is whether the Republican base, which has rewarded culture warriors, extreme “Make America Great Again” rhetoric and election denialists, has any interest at all in what she plans to sell.

Her credentials look formidable in isolation but less so when considering the values of the party whose nomination she is seeking. Is there a market in the GOP for a more unifying, multicultural, less strident delivery vehicle for Trump’s “America First” creed? After all, the ex-president’s bombast, occasional profanity and laceration of liberal government and media elites create more of an emotional rather than a directly ideological connection with his biggest fans.

For instance, after leaving the administration on good terms, she rebuked her party for following Trump down a “path he shouldn’t have” taken with his election denialism that led to the January 6, 2021, insurrection. But with Trump still a powerful figure in the GOP, she repositioned herself in October 2021.

While the former South Carolina governor is casting around for the GOP sweet spot, observers are wondering how she will build a wide support base to win the nomination.

Mair She has foreign policy and national security experience, which DeSantis does not. Trump can claim to have that kind of experience, but for many people, all it amounts to is keeping classified documents he shouldn’t have had, coddling up to dictators and autocrats, being softer on China than a lot of Republicans would like and other national security failures. Republican primary voters would love a chance to show that they are not the only ones who think this way, as she is a woman of color, and Haley knows it.

Nikki Haley: The first woman governor in South Carolina who confronted Donald Trump and his ex-Vice President Mike Pence

I have been to Iowa and New Hampshire. He said at the forum in Washington DC that this was not random. We are trying to figure this out. It is an unbelievably momentous decision to say you believe you should be the leader of the United States of America,” he added.

But Pompeo – like Haley, Scott, ex-Vice President Mike Pence, more marginal candidates and even DeSantis, if he gets in the race – all face the same problem. They might not fear Trump, but that doesn’t mean they can beat him.

I remember the first time I saw Nikki Haley. It was in a high school gym before the 2012 South Carolina Republican presidential primary. Ms. Haley was there to cheer for Tim Scott during his town hall. The first woman governor of South Carolina, the first Indian American to ever serve in that office, is the youngest governor in the country. Ms. Haley had something that talented politicians possess. She seemed to like people and people liked her. She talked with you, not to you, and made routine conversations feel special and important. She seemed to have unlimited potential.

The politician who saw herself as a role model for women and immigrants transformed herself into everything she claimed to oppose: By 2021, Ms. Haley was openly embracing her inner MAGA with comments like, “Thank goodness for Donald Trump or we never would have gotten Kamala Harris to the border.” In one sentence, she managed to attack women and immigrants while praising the man she had vowed never to stop fighting. She had gone from saying “I have to tell you, Donald Trump is everything I taught my children not to do in kindergarten” to “I don’t want us to go back to the days before Trump.”

Brooks Her immigrant story is a good one, her decision to get rid of the Confederate flag showed common decency. She had a lot of people around her that were silent when she was working for Trump.

Mike Pence, the Kansas City Star, and other republicans are considering running for the 2020 presidential election: A memoir about his time to make a decision

Mike Pence. The former vice president has visited several states and been to a few rallies to support candidates. But his popularity with Republican voters has fallen since he refused to try to block the 2020 election, and he is reluctant to criticize Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence seems to be taking his time to make a decision.

The Secretary of State is Mike Pompeo. Mr. Pompeo has an imposing résumé: congressman, C.I.A. director, secretary of state. He was able to tour and test out the message in a new memoir. The Kansas City Star said that the book is similar to a guy at a bar trying to show his strength. Mr. Pompeo said that he would make a decision about a bid in the next few months.

There are other Republicans. South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu are all thought to be considering running for president in the future. The possible field is rounded out by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Liz Cheney, who lost her House seat after helping lead the Capitol riot inquiry.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/upshot/nikki-haley-republicans-president.html

Ms. Haley: Opportunities from a New Found Democracy to the Birth of the United States and the Future of the Second Order Economic Inflation

There will be lots of other opportunities if she does decide to run for president. She could argue that a solution to high inflation and a ballooning national debt would be lower government spending, free trade and more immigration. She could point out that Mr. Trump’s trade wars and government spending contributed to the rise in inflation. It was a reason that neoliberalism took off in the 1980s.

The opportunities on foreign policy are fairly clear as well. If the candidate wants to argue against cozying up to Putin, he should think about higher military spending and closer cooperation with allies if Chinese balloons are in the air. It is easy to imagine an opportunity to attack Mr. Trump.

Ms. Haley is in the polls, so it is not a good indicator of the electoral appeal of traditional conservatism. She has only single-digit support in the polls. Almost all presidential candidates who start in the single digits end at zero, and that usually doesn’t say much about the strength of their ideological faction.