If you have done any traveling in the American Southwest, you have probably gone into at least one souvenir shop where there will be mounted Jackalope taxidermy for sale.
The Jackalope is a species of jackrabbit that has antlers, and rumor has it that this creature is super-speedy, agile, can jump like an antelope, and is a crafty fellow out in the wild. Of course, one cannot find Jackalopes out in nature, only in gift shops, as they are a good-natured hoax. The idea of a mixed breed animal is interesting, though.
Ex-Governor of South Carolina and ex-United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley announced this week that she will be running for the G.O.P. nomination for President in 2024.
Or maybe she won’t.
Nikki Haley is a gal who is hard to figure. She’s smart and clever, but she can’t always remember what she stands for. Prior to the 2016 election, she was adamantly opposed to the candidacy of Donald Trump, declaring him to be unfit for the highest office in the land because of his defense of KKK supporters. At the time, I thought, “Hey, this is my kind of Republican!”
And then she supported his candidacy, although commenting that she “wasn’t a fan”.
Haley was rewarded for her support when President Trump picked her for Ambassador to the United Nations. She did a creditable job in that role for two years, then resigned her office amidst the scandals and buffoonery of the Trump Administration, exiting the administration with her dignity largely intact.
Smart lady.
After Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020, and the Trump-fomented January 6, 2021 Capitol Riot, Haley said, “We need to acknowledge that he let us down. He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t ever let it happen again.” She followed with, “Many of his actions since the election were wrong and will be judged harshly by history.”
Well said, particularly for a highly-regarded Republican.
Except in April 2021, Nikki Haley announced that “if Trump runs for President in 2024 then I won’t”.
(Uh, what does that mean? Does it mean that everything negative you previously said about the ex-President is bogus?)
Then, in February of 2023, Haley announces that she will indeed challenge Donald Trump in 2024.
Say WHAT? Make up your mind, lady!
I can understand the wishy-washy attitude by Nikki Haley in light of the fact that probably 30 percent of Republicans are “to the death” Trump fans. She faces an uphill battle to convince those cultists that the future of the Republican Party is dismal with Donald Trump in the lead. He lost the past two Presidential popular votes by 3 million in 2016 and 7 million in 2020, and after the Capitol Riot fallout would probably lose by 10 million in 2024. Unless she (or another G.O.P. candidate) can get the nomination, Trump will lose and insure another four years of Democratic control of the White House.
Interestingly, Haley’s candidacy (as it stands today) almost assures that Trump will win the Republican nomination, because the non-Trump candidates in the G.O.P. primaries will split the remaining (less the Trump core base) voters, giving the ex-President a big advantage. Nikki Haley would almost be better off by declaring herself an Independent, seeking approval from the more than 30 percent of all registered voters who declare themselves to be non-affiliated/independent.
It is obvious that Haley is a different kind of politician than Trump and doesn’t hold many of his extreme views. She is a Southern politician, however, so she carries some of that baggage with her. On the other hand, she is non-White (a child of Punjabi Indian parents, both professionals who immigrated to the U.S. long ago) and her role in the Trump Administration (United Nations rep) was distanced a bit from the nasty domestic stuff that Trump and his inner circle dished up later in his fourth and last year in office. Haley jumped ship two years into the Trump Administration, probably sensing that things were going down the toilet, politically. So, she has relatively clean skirts, good political instincts, and a slightly different perspective on race and social matters (from a lot of Republicans) as an Indian American.
And, she was a two-term Governor of South Carolina, so she has oodles of executive experience in government, something that ex-President Trump had none of… which was apparent as soon as he took office. Haley has a respect for bureaucracy that keeps government running efficiently, which is critical, as elected officials don’t do the grunt work. And, courtesy of the U.N. job, she has a modicum of foreign policy experience, something that most candidates lack.
Another important factor to consider is that she has the guts to publicly criticize Donald Trump and dare to run against him. Most of the big name Republicans are scared shitless by the ex-President and his rabid political base, constantly kowtowing to him, and continuing to support his Stolen Election scam/grift.
If Nikki Haley wanted to scare the crap out of Donald Trump and get a lot of people to start looking seriously at her for President, she would announce that she is seeking the top job as an Independent, and would get her operatives working to get her on the ballot in all 50 states.
If she ran as an Independent, she would not have to campaign against others in the regional primaries, saving a lot of money, and would be a legitimate, significant participant in any Presidential campaign debates. She could set her own policy objectives, distinct from the partisan stew that the Republicans and Democrats are tied to.
Nikki Haley could be a Jackalope, taking some good DNA from each of the major political parties… a hybrid politician, if you will.
Someone is going to do this in 2024, and it would be nice to see someone with smarts, courage, and top-level executive experience throw down the challenge to the established political parties.
It’s time for The Jackalope Candidacy.