Haley is the last candle fending off darkness
KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C.
Until Feb. 24, the geography of 2024’s presidential politics will suggest a satisfying symmetry. The first state that voted for secession can put the nation on a path away from today’s political vitriol – the worst since the 1850s. A South Carolinian who lives here, 27 miles from the Charleston harbor fort at which the Civil War’s first shots were fired, is neither in a surrendering mood nor short of ammunition.
South Carolinian truculence threatened the nation’s unity 163 years ago. Today, that trait has the state’s former governor Nikki Haley, a self-described “street fighter in heels,” spoiling for a fight. Almost the entire Republican elite, in Washington and in this state, is prostrate before Donald Trump, the supposed populist scourge of the “establishment.” She is, however, approved by 76 percent of this state’s voters. They remember that Haley earned the enmity of the state’s political establishment by enforcing transparency: Before she did, only 8 percent of House and 1 percent of Senate decisions were by recorded votes.
This state’s voters also might reasonably resent Trump’s apparent belief that her continuing candidacy is an affront to his grandeur. And his impertinence that their primary election is a nullity, given his inevitability.
Calling herself a “happy warrior,” looking inexplicably rested and exuding an exuberant pugnacity, she is wagering that Trump cannot keep his composure for four weeks. And that a majority of voters, already embarrassed and exhausted by Trump, will be more so if he has a testosterone spill when she relentlessly needles him about being afraid to debate someone with two X chromosomes.
President Biden’s handlers cannot allow him out campaigning for nine months because they know what voters will see. Trump’s operatives cannot know what he does not know: what he will say next. One of Haley’s tasks is to trigger him.
In South Carolina, independents can vote in either party’s primary. Many of them – especially independent suburban women, who are apt to be decisive in November – are weary of behavior from Trump that they would not tolerate from their children.
Trump’s electoral weakness is as obvious as is the probability of a Haley landslide against Biden. Trump was weaker in the Iowa caucuses (51 percent) than in the 2020 election in Iowa (53 percent). He won just 30 percent of independents in New Hampshire, where 21 percent of voters in the Republican primary said they would not support Trump in November. In 21 coming Republican primaries, including 11 of the 15 on Super Tuesday (March 5), voters do not have to be registered Republicans.
South Carolinians, remember this: In 2020, Trump lost the suburbs by 10 percent. And 6 percent more women than men voted.
Why would consider Trump a stronger candidate than Haley against Biden?
This is a cliché: It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. This is a fact: Haley is the last candle fending off darkness.
Many South Carolinians are eager to snuff out Republican competition by supporting Trump. Do they wonder why Biden, too, ardently wants Trump’s nomination guaranteed immediately? If, however, South Carolina prolongs the nominating process by supporting Haley, there will be time for pleasant Republican surprises and sudden Democratic forebodings.