If it is to Make Money Being a Pundit and Selling Books, She is on Track
January 30, 2024
I had the opportunity to hear Nikki Haley speak at the annual Prescott Bush Dinner last year. She was excellent. She was a true Republican, a fiscal conservative castigating our rising national debt and its implications not for just our generation, but generations to come. She was poised to reassemble the winning Reagan coalition.
But then she got a bad dice roll. A few in fact.
Our corrupt ruling class just can’t leave Trump alone. His house at Mar-a-Lago was raided by twenty-nine FBI agents, some with automatic weapons and Kevlar vests because of a silly disagreement on classified documents. He was harassed for supposedly having sex with a porn star. He was sued for supposedly making out with some woman over thirty years ago in a dressing room at a department store. Perhaps the woman thought Trump was going to perform Bible readings when she agreed.
A partisan judge is trying to take hundreds of millions from Trump and prevent him for doing business in New York with the hilarious accusation that he inflated his assets, even though he didn’t default on any of his payments. A Georgia District Attorney – who hired her lover as a prosecutor – manipulated the RICO statute to accuse him of trying to change the Georgia election results. Federal Prosecutor Jack Smith is accusing him of “conspiracy to obstruct an election” because he is too gutless to charge him for insurrection.
Because of this egregious unfairness, Republicans rallied around Trump. Had our corrupt ruling class simply left well enough alone, DeSantis and Trump may have spilt the vote of the populist wing of the Party and Haley could have been the nominee.
But now, she is dead in the water – about to lose her home state of South Carolina by double digits – unless there is some seismic event.
So why is she still running? There are several possibilities:
She believes she can still win the nomination. Afterall, Wall Street billionaires Stanley Druckenmiller, Henry Kravis, Ken Langone and Cliff Asness are hosting huge fundraisers for her. The Koch brothers are on her side. But these billionaires know she is going nowhere. Their main goal is to prevent the Republican Party from unifying quickly behind Trump because they prefer Biden.
Haley may believe that if Trump is convicted of some crime, she will be the default nominee. But this is unlikely. Now that there are only two candidates, Trump will win most states by over 50%. The vast majority of Republican states have “winner take all” primaries meaning that she will be assigned very few delegates.
If legal issues somehow make Trump suddenly unable to run or nonviable, these Trump delegates will prefer DeSantis who has “suspended” his campaign but is still technically running.
She believes she will win the presidency if she is nominated. Haley has been suckered by bogus polls and fawning media coverage into believing she is the fourth person of the Blessed Trinity. She does not realize she is being propped up to damage Trump.
Should she by some chance be the nominee, the media will flip 180 degrees and portray her as an amoral charlatan. She will be accused on the front page of the New York Times of having affairs. It will be pointed out that she is much more conservative than President Trump, favoring cuts in Medicare and Social Security. Her strong past pro-life positions will now be a subject of constant barrage. And down she will go.
She believes Trump may choose her for Vice President to unite the Party. That may be Trump’s smartest move as this could move the billionaire class to his corner and help him with suburban women. But Trump has a somewhat vindictive nature, and this action is contrary to his personality. Plus, she will look like a sycophantic fool if she agrees.
She believes she is poised for a future presidential run. Perhaps. But they don’t call Republicans elephants for nothing, and elephants have long memories. By fighting Trump when she has little chance, she is burning many bridges. Candidates like Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis – who conceded graciously – will be better positioned in future races.
She wants to cash out by becoming a pundit and write an anti-Trump book. CNN and MSNBC will be salivating to have Haley as a constant guest on their show if Trump wins. Even if he loses, she and the liberal commentators at these networks will have her on their shows so they can gloat and make fun of what they consider to be deplorable MAGA working-class losers. She can also write an anti-Trump book that will soar to the top of the New York Times best seller list and make her millions. Liz Chaney’s book “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning,” which warns of the danger to democracy of Trump’s second term, rose to the top of Amazon books immediately and is making her millions.
So, for Haley, the smart move is to keep running and bashing Trump. The more political capital she loses, the more real capital she will end up earning.
Follow Joe Bentivegna on Twitter(X) @joebentivegnamd
Leave a Reply