I write about Nikki Haley because she aspires to be president. Though eliminated in the 2024 primaries, she seems likely to run again.
I judge presidential candidates on three principal criteria: Character, competence, and policies, in that order. (Most voters reverse the order, caring most about policies, not as much about competence, and Republican voters don’t care at all about character.)
Haley doesn’t fail on character, but I’ve concluded she isn’t presidential timber.
(1) She’s a flip-flopper. In “Two-faced Nikki Haley,” written in 2021, I pointed out that she sucked up to Trump; then, seeing a possible opening, tried to shed her Trumper image; then sucked up to him again. In 2024, she did it again. In her primary campaign, she questioned his mental fitness (but not his character); but after he locked up the nomination, she said she’ll not only vote for him, but would pardon him.
(2) She’s a weakling. Even by politician standards, she’s a jellyfish. As South Carolina governor, she waffled on removing the Confederate flag from the state capitol. In “Nikki Haley lacks backbone to be president,” I said she “lacks principles she’s willing to defend,” called her a “spineless” blob, and asked “how could we trust her to stand up for a country like Ukraine when it’s attacked? How can we trust her to stand up for right versus wrong?”
(3) She’s a panderer. She deferred to racists by calling slavery “tradition” and defending secession; and even courted them, calling herself “white” (she’s East Indian) and advocating a pardon for a white man who choked a black man to death on a New York subway.
(4) In “Two-faced Nikki Haley” (linked above) I wrote that she “doesn’t stand for anything except her own ambition. That’s not much of a qualification for President of the United States or someone I would consider voting for.” Bill Clinton was derided for triangulating, but Haley just aimlessly searches for a constituency and people willing to listen to her.
(5) In “Is Nikki Haley a serious presidential candidate?” I criticized her “bumper sticker talking points that lack substance” and described her as “a candidate searching for an issue and taking cheap shots.” I wrote, “I want to see something more than ‘I’m not a Democrat,’ and ‘if elected, I’ll screw China.’ I want to know what she’s going to do if China attacks Taiwan; I know what Biden would do, because he’s told us: He’ll defend Taiwan.” In “Memo to Nikki Haley,” I called her an “empty suit.” In “Nikki Haley wants to save America,” I found her rhetoric empty, too.
(6) Where she does have positions, they’re awful: She’s advocated Social Security “reform” that favors the rich (here), bragged about “kicking unions” (here), and endorsed Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s toxic “woke” rhetoric (here). She’s no real alternative to Trump or DeSantis. If you don’t like their policies, you won’t like hers either. She’s insulted senior citizens (here) and the working poor (here).
(7) She’s clumsy, stupid, and tone-deaf. I find it incredible she spent a Memorial Day, not honoring America’s fallen, but in Israel autographing artillery shells destined to fall on Gaza civilians (for details and a photo, read “Nikki Haley has no soul”). This will come back to haunt her; I wonder if it will be her “Dean scream” moment?
Americans want another John F. Kennedy: Someone they like, who inspires, they feel they can trust. Nikki Haley is a dud, a wet firecracker.