I know. We’re all holding our breath waiting for a couple of hours from now when we’ll finally have a sense of whether it’s going to be a good or bad night. We’ve been pretty much focused on tonight for days now. Given that, and the stakes not just for the U.S. but the free world it’s understandable that a lot of news would go unnoticed. Both abroad and at home. However it’s election night and polls have started closing BUT as I said we won’t really know what we really want to know for at least two or more likely three hours. But amidst all the speculation yesterday and busy campaign schedules of both sides we had Nikki Haley penning an OpEd for the Wall Street Journal stating that she was voting for Trump and that her voters should too. In other words, she declared she is running for President in 2028!
Haley has had an interesting relationship with Trump over the years. Looking back it’s clear she long ago had Presidential aspirations. South Carolina isn’t the backwater state many might think it is. With a major port and a big BMW plant among other manufacturing, tourism, farming and other things it’s a reasonably complex state. Some of those things I mentioned gave Haley some experience dealing with officials, both government and business from other countries. I doubt she ever thought much of Trump, but managed (given her ambition) to secure the perfect spot in his administration – U.N. Ambassador.
For a Governor without Congressional experience and on certain committees she needed that posting to have a solid “international/diplomacy” section to her Presidential resume. Being up in NYC she was well away from the daily chaos of the Trump WH. Most importantly after checking the proverbial box she knew when to get out. Unlike most Haley escaped with only a light dusting of Trump stink. And time for it to wear off. Say for 2024. (Sorry Pence!) Trump losing in 2020 and all that ensued didn’t seem to affect her standing. She stayed pretty much out of the election itself with minimal campaign stuff and she kept well away from all things Trump once it was clear he’d lost.
Pence was toast but he never had a chance against her. Haley might have flopped in Iowa this year but she has the right friend in New Hampshire (the Sununu family) and would have finished at or near the top. The next state up? Her home state of South Carolina where she wipe out the field and be off to the races with endorsements and money. Then, to no one’s surprise except apparently hers Trump declared HE would be running again. Haley rolled the dice and lost. Unlike DeSantis SHE mounted a credible campaign and even after dropping out got twenty percent or more of the vote in subsequent primaries. That led Trump to the stupid declaration of not wanting Haley’s help or her voter’s votes.
Well, more recently Trump has realized he needs those voters after all. And Haley knows it. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall during their discussions about Haley endorsing Trump. I rather doubt she was upset he wasn’t exactly begging her to hit the campaign trail for him. It would for Trump have been humiliating for him to have Haley out there at campaign events telling her voters ‘I appreciate your support but now I’m saying vote for him!’ so Haley’s eventual endorsement was pretty low key. Many a pundit wondered if we’d see her make at least a handful of appearances but all we got from her own or Trump’s people were weak-assed ‘were working on scheduling issues.’
So it looked like Haley’s endorsement announcement would be it. Then yesterday, as this article from The Independent reports Haley decided to make a new Trump endorsement pitch and in the Wall Street Journal. What that says about what Haley thinks will happen in this election is anyone’s guess. However, even if he wins it’s hard to see Trump somehow making it to 2028. He’s devolving at an increasing pace and from where I sit Haley wants to start staking her claim over J.D. Vance starting right freaking now.
Will it work? Well, it wasn’t exactly a glowing ‘Donald Trump is the greatest most awesome person that ever lived’ type of thing. She recently aired some of her own issues with Trump:
“You’re not going to hear me say glowing things about Donald Trump’s personality. I have issues with him, as well,” Haley told Sirius XM in September.
“I have not forgotten what he said about me. I’ve not forgotten what he said about my husband or his, you know, deployment time or his military service. I haven’t forgotten about his and his campaign’s tactics from, you know, putting a birdcage outside our hotel room to calling me ‘bird brain.”’
Frankly I think Haley has every right to feel aggrieved. But she’s got her eye on the horizon of 2028 and for the moment she’s trying to straddle the fence with both MAGAs and not just her own voters from the primaries but Independents in general:
“I don’t agree with Mr. Trump 100% of the time. But I do agree with him most of the time, and I disagree with Ms. Harris nearly all the time. That makes this an easy call,” Haley wrote for the newspaper.
That of course will go over well with most MAGAs. But she waters that down some as she later tries to talk out both sides of her mouth win an appeal to others:
“For those of us clear-eyed enough to see Mr. Trump’s flaws and honest enough to acknowledge them, the question is whether we’re better off with his policies or his opponent’s. On taxes, spending, inflation, immigration, energy and national security, the candidates are miles apart,” Haley wrote.
Overall it’s an endorsement but being in the WSJ instead of going on say Fox and saying these things tells me Haley’s being strategic with her endorsement. The WSJ will be seen by power players and moneyed GOPers but not most Republican voters. Still, it’s something she can later point to with MAGA and claim right up to the election she supported Trump. Most won’t see the whole endorsement, but rather just the first part I highlighted. Independents won’t be so easily fooled.
Still, as we wait to see what happens it’s worth noting the jockeying in the GOP for 2028 has officially begun. Which, if Trump is still alive and kicking will be for naught because if he loses he’ll run again. And if he wins he won’t leave the WH until he croaks. But Haley’s running. You heard it here first.
Clear eyed to see trump’s flaws? Honey, his base considers him to be their god. To them, he has no flaws, has a buff bod, and seemingly wears a fireman’s coat and cowboy hat all of the time. I have a feeling seeing flaws in their guy is about the same as laying him low with facts about his life, his time in office, and his time after leaving office: his base is not going to like it.