The Republican on how Nikki Haley could move GOP forward:

If you are old enough, you may recall having learned in school that in America, the land of opportunity, any little boy, no matter how rich or how poor, can dream of growing up to become president of the United States.

Any little boy?

Yes. Any little boy. Because opportunity wasn’t equally distributed among the people. In fact, for the longest time, women in our nation were literally second-class citizens. Consider: women didn’t even get the right to vote until 1920.

When Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, announced on Tuesday that she’ll be seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, much was made of the fact that if she were to win the presidency, she’d be the first woman to attain the post. But Haley’s story contains much more than that. She’s an Indian-american, the daughter of immigrants. And she’s widely seen as both whip smart and as possessing great political instincts. How great? Some have put her in league with Bill Clinton when it comes to reading the room, understanding almost intuitively how best to play the cards she was dealt.

Haley served as governor of South Carolina before being tapped by Donald Trump to be ambassador to the United Nations. During her stint as chief executive of the Palmetto State, she oversaw with great aplomb the removal of the Confederate flag from state grounds after a white supremacist murdered nine Black parishioners at a historic Black church. Getting the flag removed was no simple task in a state that had honored the Confederate symbol forever.

You don’t need to love Haley, or all of her political views, to be glad to see her in the GOP presidential nominating contest. With her entry, it’s now Trump and Haley. Put another way, one might note that it’s now Trump, who ran in 2016 as an anti-immigrant candidate, and Haley, the daughter of immigrants.

And don’t imagine that her gender, and her ethnicity, haven’t been issues during her time in politics. A lone example: she was derided as “a raghead” by a prominent political blogger during her 2009 campaign for South Carolina governor.

Haley, an energetic 51 years old, will stand in stark contrast to Trump, who will turn 77 in a few months.

Anyone looking for the GOP to move beyond Trump should welcome Haley to the nominating contest.