This is a development that makes complete sense. Two of the headliners at the biennial Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference scheduled for late September were Mike Pence and Nikki Haley. They have both dropped out. While details are scarce as to why they did that, it’s not too far a stretch to say that they’ve both dropped out of the running for the 2024 GOP ticket.
Haley went on record saying that she would not run if Trump announced, and of course Trump announcing any moment now is a rumor that’s been going on for weeks. I don’t expect Trump to announce because the minute he does he won’t be able to collect money the same way and he wants to fatten the coffers of his PAC.
However, Haley may have gotten some inside word about Trump running and maybe from Trump himself. It is possible.
As to Mike Pence, unless I miss my guess he’s basically done. He’s been done since he got hissed and booed in Florida. He’s got to know that he’s viewed as a “traitor” by a large segment of the Republican electorate that he needs to get elected and that that is never going to change. I don’t expect to see Pence show up too many places at all, unless it would be to stump for Mike Pompeo, with whom he is strong allies, and I don’t see Pompeo as moving forward in the pack that many notches at this point.
Make of this development what you will. My reading of the tea leaves at this point is that Pence and Haley have both tacitly withdrawn from consideration for the top spot on the 2024 ticket, without formally announcing such.
Here’s who will be there.
Speakers who are still on the Michigan GOP event’s list include other potential 2024 presidential candidates U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. Other guests include Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Ronna McDaniel, former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, former Michigan Gov. John Engler and former President Donald Trump spokesman and “Dancing with the Stars” alum Sean Spicer.
Maybe you could go discoing with Sean after the day’s events.
Two opinions. First, you may well be right that Trump privately told Haley that he would be running. That doesn’t mean he actually will! As you say, he can raise and (due to fucked up laws) engage in some all too easy chicanery to keep a helluva lot of money if he DOESN”T run, or more importantly for the next couple of years formally declare. The second issue is more complicated. Haley had punched her Trump ticket (so to speak) and also her foreign policy one (important for a smallish state Gov. looking to move up to the WH) by being his UN Ambassador. She then got out of the Trump orbit relatively (compared to most) unscathed and seemingly able to wind up washing off the Trump stink, setting herself up for 2024 or 2028. She’s still young after all.
For reasons that defy explanation she dove headfirst into a Trump cesspool even filthier than when she left it. She could have simply done so pro-forma appearances at some minor events in the south but instead she cultivated a high profile “I’m with Trump” position and has added to it by speaking up on the Big Lie instead of keeping quiet. 2028 seems like an eternity but she’d have been better off skipping 2024 altogether because all the signs were there that Trump would lose and lose “bigly” in 2020 and the GOP was going to have to take a couple of cycles to repair itself. Now? She’s swum around in that Trump cesspool and sought out the worst parts of it and will never get the Trump stink out of her political career.
She should have stayed out of the mess. She now has the trump stink on her and it’s up in the nostrils where you can always get a whiff. And trump has to hold back for as long as possible to keep them dollars rolling. If he was smart which we all know he’s not. He would wait as long as possible then take his ill gotten gains and go home. Oh yeah, he can’t go home. He doesn’t have one.
They’re not Tr*mpy enough for the MAGAts and too much so for everyone else.
And that is the cleft fork that will destroy the R party.
Who’d the republicans have before Trump? Jeb Bush? Trump is the republican party now, cope all you want.
Being a lying c*nt generated her own stink.
Quite frankly I don’t see pompey welcoming Mikey Hairshirt if the G.Q.P. continue to hate his a*s like they do.