Nikki Haley had her moment in the early debates. Calling out the dysfunction and incompetence in Congress and the Republican Party electrified people — but just for a moment. Since then, she has been coasting, attempting to avoid angering any part of the potential GOP coalition. She is trying to thread a needle that cannot be threaded. In politics, when you try to be somebody to everybody, you end up being nobody to anybody.
The past four months of the Republican primary process have shown why Haley and DeSantis are on the B-team.
Breaking Out and Stalling
The Haley campaign was flailing and failing for months, it looked pointless as she went into the first Republican “understudy” debate. Haley broke out by grabbing the anti-establishment mantle. While DeSantis, played rope-a-dope, Haley swung away at a fumbling, losing, incompetent Republican Party — it rescued her campaign. Haley shot past the other nobodies, approaching DeSantis’s polling numbers. The race became Trump far ahead with Haley and DeSantis battling to be the alternative. (READ MORE: Republicans Need an Immigration Deal Now Rather Than Later)
Then she froze.
It’s all well and good to say what every Republican was thinking about bumbling leadership, but that’s not enough. At some point, you have to put some meat on the bone. That’s where Haley failed.
Instead of charging through the anti-establishment opening, she shrunk at the task. Perhaps she felt safer retreating to pre-Trump Republican orthodoxy, or perhaps her new donors wanted a “conventional” candidate who does not say things that upset them and their cocktail party guests. Whatever the reason, Haley missed her chance to define herself in a way acceptable to the GOP base while presenting herself as the best chance to beat Biden.
Haley has since been tagged with the dreaded “neocon” label — a toxic term in important corners of the GOP social media and podcast world. Is Haley truly a neocon? Maybe. maybe not. The “neocon” slam has become an all-purpose insult akin to how Trump calls anyone a RINO who looks at him cross-eyed.
Discredited by the quagmire in Iraq and de-industrialization that mostly benefited China and Wall Street, neocons are politically marginalized and homeless. Republicans ejected them and the Democrats don’t want them. There is zero prospect of a comeback.
Haley’s problem is that she and her team either do not recognize the problem, or they do but are afraid of alienating her new donors. Perhaps she believes that too much aggressive rhetoric would lose her the support of suburban women — something the GOP desperately needs to claw back. Either way, she made a bad move (or non-move).
Money does not matter nearly as much as it used to in national politics. Votes and grassroots support matter far more. No dollar amount can make up for bad or weak messaging. After all, Trump was outspent by far in 2016 and still won.
Where Is the U.N. Bashing?
Haley has had plenty of opportunity to show America First/populist bona fides without necessarily transforming into a Vivek-like bootlicker. Her stint as a UN ambassador is the perfect platform to take swings at a corrupt, venal, morally bankrupt organization that conservatives detest.
Where is the demand to disband a Human Rights Council headed by the most vicious, authoritarian regimes? Where is the proposal to tie access to the American market to how nations vote in the UN? What about a code of conduct for diplomats that routinely flout American law and make life for the NYPD miserable? She could easily end each demand with a quick, ‘If you don’t like it, you can get out.’
Haley never served in Congress (unlike DeSantis). She has no association with the failure and dysfunction of the D.C. Republicans. She was not part of Trump’s failure to implement his domestic policy. Haley was a popular and successful southern governor, a small business owner, and a local volunteer — and her husband is in the military. She has a resume that should play favorably in the field. (READ MORE: After Iowa, It’s Time for Republicans to Rally to Trump)
However, Haley’s failure to exploit her cultural advantage is egregious. Haley is a Clemson graduate while Ramaswamy is from Harvard, DeSantis went to Yale Law School, and Trump went to U-Penn. Of all the institutions in American society the conservative grassroots detests, Ivy League schools are at the top of the list. With the disastrous performances of the Penn and Harvard Presidents over anti-semitism, much of the rest of the country is starting to agree.
Haley could have easily swatted aside Ramaswamy’s barbs by saying, “The last thing America needs is a Harvard sociopath in the Oval Office.” That’s a guaranteed applause line and what’s Ramaswamy going to say? Instead, she choked and made the cardinal political error of letting an attack go unresponded. Trump would never have let Ramaswamy off the hook.
The bottom line is that Haley is well-positioned to engage in the anti-elitist class war that energizes the GOP base. If Haley’s money people don’t like it, tough.
Too Timid, Too Late
The bottom line is that Haley has not been aggressive enough. She has failed to grab the populist high ground and she hasn’t pushed the “winner” narrative supported by her polling against Joe Biden.
Haley is still in the game, but just barely. She polls better against Biden than either Trump or DeSantis. Her lead in the most recent CBS poll is 53 percent to 45 percent, an 8-point lead and ahead of Trump’s 2-point lead (50 percent to 48 percent). Importantly, Biden’s percentage drops against her, to just 45 percent, which means she is not just claiming undecided voters but is actually pulling votes out of the Biden column.
Should Trump’s legal troubles catch up to him and push him into a deficit against Biden or his health noticeably deteriorate (he is unquestionably not as sharp as he was in 2016), Haley remains the Republican best placed to beat Biden, as discussed in this column earlier this month.
Haley would be in much better shape if she and her team would get with the times and match up better with the Republican base. The prospects for that, however, are not great. Politicians and their campaign flacks are stubborn types. They hate to admit they are wrong. Changing course usually means someone gets fired — which is what should happen within Haley’s circle. But like many in whatever mish-mash that counts for the GOP establishment, Haley’s crew does not get it.