Wednesday Morning Rant

For all of the criticism Nikki Haley has accrued thanks to her firm opposition to the base, pro-establishment positions and Party dealings, her achievements cannot be understated. Throughout her presidential campaign, she remained committed to her promise to deliver what the people don't want, but what the Party insiders very much do. Her efforts have been blessed with great success - even historic success. Haley can confidently wrap up her campaign, confident in the knowledge that she has done something that has never been done before.

As the talking heads this morning proclaimed while barely holding back their disappointment over the "Super Tuesday" results, Nikki Haley achieved an historic "First" (and not of the Sponge variety)! She is the first Republican woman to win a presidential primary. And not just one, she smashed the old record by winning two primaries! She won her native homeland of Washington, DC as well as a staggering 6.7% of the Super Tuesday states. Truly, an accomplishment for the ages.

Hats off to Nikki Haley. Between her campaign and the Nikki-boosting PACs, she managed to suck north of $130 million out of the Republican establishment per OpenSecrets. In keeping with Haley's political philosophy, over three quarters of her fundraising came from large donors. Her campaign and PACs have torched at least $115 million. It takes talent and hard work to burn through that much Establishment money in a matter of months and have nothing to show for it. Quite an achievement.

Nikki Haley also deserves significant credit for learning a lesson that countless others have learned before. Like Michael Bloomberg before her, she has demonstrated that flushing away large sums of money and flooding the airwaves with the message won't deliver victory for a hated candidate and platform. Time and again, US presidential hopefuls try this strategy and time and again they finally bow out of the contest, assured of their defeat. This is not new, but it was apparently new to Haley. She has now gained a valuable piece of experience, so chalk up another accomplishment.

Nikki Haley also managed to accomplish something fairly few well-known and Party-backed candidates have managed before. Haley was a "real" candidate, with real backing and decent name recognition. Despite this, she achieved the unusual state of total non-consideration. There have been many passionate and even vicious arguments over the Republican candidates. Trump and DeSantis both raised everything from unwavering enthusiasm to unhinged ire among their supporters and detractors. Nikki Haley managed to raise nothing but contempt from the base and nothing but a weary sense of duty from the check-writing establishment. The only passion for Haley was the low-rent public passion-for-hire of washed-up and irrelevant ConInc pundits desperately trying to maintain their own alms from the establishment check-writers.

Despite all of her accomplishments, she has now suspended her campaign. It's over, though surely some operations will continue for a bit, as her campaign still has a few million dollars to incinerate. Haley's accomplishments represent a lesson learned by many before her and that will surely be learned by many that follow in the increasingly expensive and irrelevant presidential campaign pageantry: that no amount of money, shrieking, laudatory press or think-pieces can make people want you.

posted by Joe Mannix at 11:00 AM

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