Nikki Haley Becomes a Lab Rat

 

I've just become obsessed with Nikki Haley. It's no secret that the former governor of South Carolina would like to run for president. She would be an attractive candidate -- a young bright professional, daughter of Sikh immigrants from India and hence a "woman of color," someone who projects intelligence and strength. Though Haley was a loyal servant to President Donald J. Trump during his first two years in office (as US ambassador to the U.N.), she got out in time to escape scandal, and she bears no resemblance to the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of Trump World.

After the election but before the insurrection, she remained a loyal Trump defender, albeit an embarrassed one, as she tried to excuse Trump's Big Lie about election fraud. She said it was his sincere belief, hence excusable. According to her, Trump grabbed hold of tainted information and bad rumors and took the advice of idiots, which perhaps unbalanced him and led him to say things he shouldn't. But if a man sincerely believes he's been wronged, is it an impeachable offense for him to say so? Haley told reporter Tim Alberta back before the Capitol riot that all Trump's spouting about fraud wasn't impeachable because it was free speech.

That was then, a more forgivable time, followed unfortunately by the savagery of January 6th, which "triggered" Haley into open rebellion. She now wants to be the female Moses whoi will lead her Party out of Egypt.

She's zigged and zagged about Trump all along. She knows how to "accommodate herself to the dark realities of a Trump-dominated party" (as Alberta puts it), but she's always had trouble concealing her personal distaste for him. She's both defended Trump about the second impeachment (“At some point, I mean, give the man a break! I mean, move on .... Does he deserve to be impeached? Absolutely not!”), but now today, with the publication of an already notorious Tim Alberta Politico profile piece, she's apparently prepared to ditch the Trump brand and try to reclaim the GOP for herself and traditional conservatives like her -- "We shouldn't have followed him." Bam! 

However, it's hard to be a strong, successful, Republican woman politician not in thrall to Trump (see Cheney, Liz). Maybe it's impossible. That's my theory, which is why I'm now obsessed with watching what happens to Nikki Haley.

As a Trump prom date, she's always had a wandering eye. She endorsed Marco Rubio in the 2016 South Carolina Republican primary, spooked like a lot of headliner Republican office-holders that year (see Graham, Lindsey). Trump was just a dirty joke waiting for the punchline. “I wanted somebody that was going to go and show my parents that the best decision they ever made was coming to America,” Haley said of Rubio, and the implied criticism of Trump by comparison cut like diamond. Didn't matter. Trump beat Rubio in the South Carolina primary by 10 points and went on to world domination.

After which Haley humbled herself, sucked up to Trump as a loyal ally and willing servant, got the U.N. gig as a reward because of her new (weird) loyalty. She only stuck with that job (people forget) for two antsy years, exiting the Trump contagion just after the 2018 Fall elections, resigning her U.N. ambassadorship on December 30, 2018. Whew! She'd had enough of Trump's erratic foreign policy. Plus she was bright enough to see the potential harm to her own reputation as a Trump functionary because her boss, interested primarily in self-gratification, was making world affairs just another reality show that hinged on cruelty.

Her zigging and zagging on Trump since January 6 deserves its own map. On January 7th, the day after the insurrection, she denounced Trump's words and behavior in her keynote address at the Winter Meeting of the GOP at a resort in Florida: “President Trump has not always chosen the right words. He was wrong with his words in Charlottesville, and I told him so at the time. He was badly wrong with his words yesterday. And it wasn’t just his words. His actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.” 

Don't know what she expected by way of reaction to those words, and since I wasn't privileged to be in that room to gauge the vibe, I have to rely on media. Apparently, she got away with it, more or less, albeit accompanied by some stony stares and perfunctory applause. She was soon complaining to Laura Ingraham about how unfairly that poor man Trump was being treated by a second Democratic goddamn impeachment: "Leave the man alone!"

But then, in an interview with Politico published today, Nikki goes full monty for the divorce. She was particularly outraged by Trump's treatment of Vice President Pence, enough so that she would go on the record. She told Alberta:

...I’m watching the television the morning of the 6th and I see Don Junior get up there,” she said, reciting the president’s son’s calls to action against Republican leaders, closing her eyes as if reimagining the scene. “And then I hear the president get up there and go off on Pence. I literally was so triggered, I had to turn it off. I mean, Jon [Lerner] texted me something and I said, ‘I can’t. I can’t watch it. I can’t watch it,’ because I felt the same thing. Somebody is going to hear that, and bad things will happen.” ...

“When I tell you I’m angry, it’s an understatement,” Haley hissed, leaning forward as she spoke. “Mike has been nothing but loyal to that man. He’s been nothing but a good friend of that man. … I am so disappointed in the fact that [despite] the loyalty and friendship he had with Mike Pence, that he would do that to him. Like, I’m disgusted by it.” 

 Alberta offers insight into Haley's personality which helps explain her ragged path:

What I’ve heard again and again is that Haley’s raw skills obscure an absence of core beliefs and a lack of tactical thinking. I’ve also heard—and witnessed—how her laid-back southern persona conceals a pugnacious impulsive streak. Her unplanned outbursts and bridge-burning decisions are legend in South Carolina where she built a reputation for demanding loyalty but rarely giving it, leaving the road behind her littered with enemies as well as allies.

Gosh. She sounds a lot like the Trump we've come to know. But smarter. Surely smarter. 

"Shadow Candidates": Republican Long Knives

Mike Pence is running for president. So is John Kasich. U.N. Ambassador Niki Haley has hired a pollster. Senators Tom Cotton (who's a polite young man) and Ben Sasse (who's openly defiant of Trump) have both been to Iowa Republican Party events. William Kristol, editor at large of The Weekly Standard, said he had begun informal conversations about creating a “Committee Not to Renominate the President”

(Hattip: Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, for their reporting based on "interviews with more than 75 Republicans at every level of the party, elected officials, donors and strategists.")

“They see weakness in this president,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “Look, it’s not a nice business we’re in.”

Pence is Trump's vice president and shouldn't be visibly running just six months into a first term. So he's not visibly running, but make no mistake: He's doing political calisthenics to be in shape should Trump not be able to continue. He's "party-building,"ostensibly, but also raising money for himself and displaying a grounded, adult, and credible alternative to Trump.

Meanwhile, John Kasich

... has been more defiant: The Ohio governor, who ran unsuccessfully in 2016, has declined to rule out a 2020 campaign in multiple television interviews, and has indicated to associates that he may run again, even if Mr. Trump seeks another term.

Mr. Kasich, who was a sharp critic of the Republicans’ failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act with deep Medicaid cuts, intends to step up his advocacy by convening a series of policy forums, in Ohio and around the country.

"It may get worse," said Jay Bergman, leading Republican donor. "Grievous setbacks" in the midterm elections of 2018 "could bolster challengers" in the party.

"The Shadow Candidates," Martin and Burns dubbed 'em. Long may they thole, and toughly!

Pat McCrory, Margaret Spellings ... Nosing Out Non-Existent Dangers

Kevin Siers, in the Charlotte Observer.

Meanwhile in South Carolina, conservative Republican Governor Nikki Haley told her state that a similar "bathroom bill" was not needed in the Palmetto State.

Haley was reacting to the introduction of another one of those "save the women and children" fear-mongering bills, introduced in the South Carolina legislature by a Republican running scared for reelection (he has three primary opponents, and the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce is actively campaigning against him).

It's sobering, O my children, when South Carolina looks and acts much saner than the Tar Heel State. (I can't believe the words that are about to come out of my keyboard:) Nikki Haley appears to be the only rational Republican governor left in the nation.

Catching up on some other HB2 news: Newly installed, pearl-wearing president of the University of North Carolina, Margaret Spellings, the hunting dog who follows the whistles from the Republican leadership in the NC General Assembly, has issued a letter to all UNC constituent chancellors that they must follow the letter of the HB2 law.

We can't be surprised that the lackey jumps when the masters crack the whip.

It's all quite ridiculous, as only political grandstanding can be, since no one -- no one -- has suggested exactly how such a pile of HB2 doodoo could ever be enforced.

Tuesday Smorgasbord

Do they even believe it themselves?

1. Congresswoman Renee Ellmers (Republican, NC-2) sez that when Bob Etheridge sent out mailers to constituents, it was a shocking waste of tax-payer money. When she does the exact same thing, it's God's holy will.

2. Appalachian State University is a Commie palace because it hosted two "green" lectures last February.

3. Former state Democratic Party Executive Director Andrew Whalen sez that what we really really need are more Blue Dogs in Congress, peeing all over the rugs.

4. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) admitted that she had simply made up her assertion that half the people who applied to work at a nuclear facility in the state had failed drug tests, yet said she will still push to drug test the unemployed.

5. Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) said that while his businesses made $6.3 million last year, after you “pay 500 employees, you pay rent, you pay equipment, and food,” his profits were “a mere fraction of that” — “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.”

You Get What You Asked For, South Carolina

South Carolina's new governor Nikki Haley ... wholly-owned subsidiary of Reynolds American, General Electric, Exxon Mobil, Walmart, Eli Lilly and Pfizer, Waffle House, and Comcast.

Almost $1 million funneled into the South Carolina governor's race last year to insure that South Carolinians remain wage slaves with little to no benefits.

Thank you, once again, Supreme Court of the U.S., for Citizens United: "The large Reynolds American donation, and four others..., took advantage of a federal judge's September ruling that struck down campaign contribution limits on PACs and other third-party groups in South Carolina."

The Palmetto Bug Is Just a Giant Cockroach

Apparently, the good ole boys just don't like Nikki Haley, the Mark Sanford disciple now locked in a 2nd primary run-off of her own to be the next Republican governor of South Carolina.

All those accusations of infidelity didn't do the trick. So the male Republican establishment in S.C. is trotting out a platoon of other disqualifiers, like that she's a secret practitioner of the Sikh religion. (Incidentally, the only Sikhs I have personally known were in mass attendance at one of the last pro-choice rallies I attended in Washington, D.C. So, if Nikki Haley is a secret Sikh, that may mean she's secretly also pro-choice?)

Don't tell Sarah Palin. Palin has endorsed Haley. 'Course, Palin also endorsed getting a bunch of Dutch dike-builders down to the Gulf to fix that leak problem. (Sarah doesn't remember a lot from school, but she remembers that "finger in the dike" story!)

Some of those Republican ole boys in South Carolina say they may support the Democratic candidate for governor if Nikki Haley wins her 2nd primary. Anything can and probably will happen south of the border.

Pathway to Notoriety?

We've tried our best to pay no attention, since "hiking the Appalachian Trail," to what goes on politically in South Carolina, which is to say the extra-marital scandal du jour, which is why we've refrained from picking through the rumpled linen of leading Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley and the outing of her illicit love affair with a conservative blogger (so bloggers do get out of their pajamas occasionally, albeit only to climb into bed with fresh meat). That the spilling of those beans was done by the fornicating blogger himself almost got us going, especially as he was also formerly the public spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford, of that Appalachian Trail hike fame, and who could resist the convergence?

Well, we did.

Until now.

Over at Balloon Juice, blogger DougJ ruefully reflected on the uptick in blog traffic such a public scandal was sure to provoke:

Do we really live in a world where bloggers can allege having had affairs with politicians and suddenly become national celebrities? Is this something we at Balloon Juice should consider as a traffic maximization strategy? And who would be a good politician to claim I've had an affair with?

Among the 194 suggestions from readers was this one:

... Rep. Virginia Foxx ... produce a string of emails in which you refer to her as "Representative Foxxxy," or how she was "a Foxx in the Rooster house" or something.

Ok, now I need a shower.