New Hampshire: Nikki's 'Comeback Kid' Pose
With "The Donald's" second win -- IA & now NH, and his upcoming 'Sweet South Carolina' swamp -- it's time to pivot to beating Biden
One does wonder when Nikki Haley will get the memo. Trump trounced in Iowa leading reasonable opponents like Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Vivek Ramaswamy to hang up their sparring gloves and join “Team Trump” before, if not after, Iowa and certainly before having their clocks cleaned in New Hampshire.
But not Nikki, whom former President Donald J. Trump appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. No, she kept soldiering on because, it was whispered among her upper ranks and inner circle, Trump will be imprisoned; you can take it to the bank— the documents case the surefire reason why— and will be unable to run, with Nikki inheriting the prize.
If that is truly what she thinks, Trump, a branding genius, can be forgiven for dubbing her “birdbrain.” For even positing that fantastical scenario — imprisoning a former president who is the hands-down favorite to win the presidency once again in the ultimate comeback — never mind that his opponent has been squirrelling away classified documents since his 1970s Senate days when he had no authority to retain them outside a SCIF — one is not disqualified from running for president from prison. And if the four Trump indictments are any indication — absurdly, three more than mobster Al Capone got, Trump notes — imprisonment would cause his popularity to soar.
But, then, the founders envisioned just such a time as this when the country was threatened by a tyrannical stranglehold and had such faith in democracy, believing it would course-correct and bring the true freedom-loving candidate to power. That’s a lot of faith! Yes, “these are the times that try men’s (and that includes women’s) souls.”
Add to the mix Democrat opinion shapers who are suddenly opening their eyes up to Nikki’s magic. Chris Matthews, for instance, who this journalist kept running into in New Hampshire in the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote. First at Exeter High School Sunday night. “What did you think?” I asked him after her remarks. Along with his non-plussed facial expression, he said, “Where’s the life? Where’s the human being?” My thought exactly. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had just pulled out of the race at 3 p.m. but she gave us nothing but an oblique reference to this huge development. It’s why I had trudged out to this event even though I had already met Haley at a small gathering in Peterborough the day before.
Later that night, Matthews said, the problem with Haley is ‘you don’t win on thirty issues. You win on three.’
That, of course, is why, in spite of all the head winds, legal and political, Trump is winning, I said. And winning decisively. For his three issues — economy, national security and energy — is what’s animating his electorate in ways voters have never been animated. Making it more likely, given that Trump delivered in spectacular fashion on these issues during his first presidential term in spite of all the obstacles placed in his path by the proverbial “Deep State,” that no matter what shenanigans the Dems might try and pull in the general election, Trump will win. Hands down.
Yeah, but he’s a fake, said Matthews, in so many words.
That’s not what I saw in Laconia Monday night where I had a front row spot for Trump’s final campaign appearance in New Hampshire. Whereas Matthews saw “a lot of poor people,” I trained my eyes on the candidate and saw someone who was very human — ironically so given Matthews’ comment about Haley. And this human being who has never had the opportunity to lay eyes on Donald Trump because of her family duties including caring for her bed-bound father for four years almost singlehandedly, who slipped the surly bonds of earth last July, was impressed. I am a biographer and basically study the human heart for a living and what I found as I studied Trump, ringside, was someone with a huge and good heart who is a gift to America.
It is no more complicated than that. Apropos of which, I find Trump to be remarkably uncomplicated. He wants “to make America great again.” That’s it.
Now Chris Matthews, who commented as we were all going off to the election watch parties that Haley did not have the “magic,” sees her — in the wake of Tuesday night’s loss that she called a win while Donald Trump called “B—S—” on her — as a caterpillar-turned-“butterfly.”
A veritable Peter Pan!
Though I have a feeling the voters in the upcoming primaries who will be purer Republican electorates— not a bunch of Democrats and Independents weighing in as New Hampshire allows, i.e., some 3,000 Democrat switch-hitters Tuesday night — will deliver the reality blow that will allow Republicans to pivot finally to cleaning Joe Biden’s clock in November on the way to cleaning up the mess he has made of America.
Think Mary Martin, the original Broadway Peter Pan, the strings allowing her to fly, magically so, being cut so that she comes crashing to the stage. That is what is poised to happen to Nikki Haley. The “magic,” such that it is, gone in a flash. It is not too late for her to course correct but the hour is late. Not only for her but for America.
Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends, published in Madrid under the title También Dios pasa por Hollywood. She recently finished writing a book about the life of Ernest Hemingway viewed through the prism of faith due to be published in late 2024.