Everyone enters the presidential nominating race with the thought they could win. Okay, not everyone, some enter because they know it’ll sell books and/or will get them a great gig in the administration of the eventual winner, which will translate into cash in their pocket in the end.
But everyone else enters thinking they could win it. Then reality happens. Unless you’re Nikki Haley, then you just ignore reality and the will of voters, and you spend your time punching yourself in the face in front of an ever-dwindling crowd of supporters.
You almost feel bad for her, until you realize she’s doing it to herself. This slow, auto-erotic asphyxiation Haley is engaged in; destroying her political future and rendering irrelevant her past accomplishments.
At some point, someone whispered into her ear that she stood a chance, that only she could beat Donald Trump. Everyone has to campaign like they’re the only one who can win, but sooner or later those who aren’t winning have to come to terms with the reality that they won’t. She’s avoided that reality.
Nikki Haley will never be the Republican nominee for president, not in 2024 or ever. She could have stood a chance in 2028, but she blew that up by turning into former Ohio governor and insufferable 2016 candidate John Kasich, who wasted endless time and money on a campaign to get a CNN contract and wouldn’t shut up about how his dad was a mailman. Well, blue collar sweat isn’t passed down in the DNA, it’s earned.
Kasich was, for lack of more-perfect words, annoying as hell. Haley has reached that level.
In a recent “Meet the Press” appearance, Nikki showed just how weaselly she really is. Asked whether or not she would ultimately endorse Donald Trump, she tossed the following word salad: “Well, I think, first of all, if you talk about an endorsement, you're talking about a loss. I don't think like that. When you're in a race, you don't think about losing. You think about continuing to go forward. What I can tell you is: I don't think Donald Trump or Joe Biden should be president. I don't think that we need two candidates in their 80s. I don't think we want a Joe Biden, who calls his opponents fascists or a Donald Trump, who calls his opponents vermin. No one wants that. I think people want a new generational leader that is going to go back to what the American dream is, what we want for our kids, and a place that's something that we can be proud of again.”
The only problem with what Haley is saying there is, given every opportunity to vote for her, the people pass. Maybe the public does want a younger candidate, that’s unclear, what is clear is that, if they do, they don’t want it to be Nikki Haley. She’s the only other game in town, and massive majorities are refusing to play.
Asked if she’d honor the pledge she signed to support the eventual nominee, she again got slimy, “The RNC pledge – I mean, at the time of the debate, we had to take it to where, ‘Would you support the nominee,’ and in order to get on that debate stage, you said yes. The RNC is now not the same RNC.”
So, she lied to get on the debate stage? Or she thinks pledges are only valid as long as the head of an organization the pledge was made to remains the same? Every time there’s a new Pope, I guess every Catholic marriage has to be renegotiated, at a minimum?
As the father of two daughters, I don’t want my kids to grow up to be like Nikki Haley. That wasn’t always the case, her career was something to admire and, by extension, she was too. She, as a person, no longer is.
Nikki Haley has gone from being an example of something for girls to aspire to, to a cautionary tale on arrogance and self-destruction. It's a shame, really. She could have helped beat the Democrats and advance the causes she has spent the last year professing to care about deeply. Now, she’s shown herself to be the only cause she actually cares about, and everything else was just a means to that end. She should be embarrassed by what she’s become, but anyone capable of that level of self-awareness wouldn’t become what Nikki Haley has to begin with.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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