PRESIDENTIAL BATTLE STARTS WITH A SWIPE AT RIVALS
Ex-South Carolina governor has long road to climb
She’s a civil conservative with sharp heels, a woman of color who comes with a rare combination of foreign policy and gubernatorial experience.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley makes her first official stops in New Hampshire this week — seeking to seize the moment as a “new generation” of leader and Donald Trump’s only opponent so far in the 2024 race.
Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants and former South Carolina governor, at least for now has a lane if she can show she can stand up to the former president and carve out a role as a conservative alternative.
Right now Haley is effectively countering the extreme right-wing image of the GOP. She has two children, one a pediatric nurse, and her husband is an Afghanistan war veteran.
She did not come from big money — her parents were teachers and owned a clothing boutique. And though she was raised as a Sikh, she converted to a Methodist when she got married.
“My father wore a turban. My mother wore a sari. I was a brown girl in a Black and white world,” Haley said in 2020. “We faced discrimination and hardship, but my parents never gave in to grievance and hate.”
She has a long road to climb — starting out her campaign Wednesday placing fourth among GOP hopefuls including Trump. In the Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll of 1,465 registered Republicans, Haley only drew 4%, with Trump leading at 43% and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 31%.
Or she could be running to position herself as a vice presidential candidate and boost her book sales in case her presidential bid fails.
But you don’t want to underestimate Nikki Haley, who boasts that she’s never lost a race.
Haley stops in Exeter on Thursday and then St. Anselm College on Friday — the first out-of-state foray since announcing her campaign Wednesday.
“We’re ready, ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past, and we are more than ready for a new generation to lead us into the future,” she said.
Haley is hoping the “new generation” moniker sticks as she tries to raise the millions necessary to mount a credible campaign. She called for “mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.”
It’s an obvious attempt to contrast herself with 76-year-old Trump and 80-year-old Joe Biden and it just might work.
On paper, Haley is a credible mixture of foreign policy experience as former U.N. Ambassador and state experience as governor.
She has taken controversial stands that angered conservatives — breaking from Trump after the Jan. 6 riots and taking down the confederate flag from the South Carolina state capitol.
But she is not directly confronting Trump right now — probably a wise strategy. Save that for the debates.