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You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Nikki Haley Dives for the New Hampshire ‘Libertarian’ Primary Voters

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Nikki Haley Dives for the New Hampshire ‘Libertarian’ Primary Voters

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Maybe I’m just a Masshole cynic, but the first time I saw this clip, I thought the questioner was a campaign plant. Look at that audience — do you see shock / repulsion / rejection on those well-fed white faces?

“I think it always comes down to the role of government, and what the rights of the people are, and I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people… Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life, they don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom.”

*That’s* the extract that the Haley campaign will be using for the New Hampshire campaign, now and (probably) in 2028. Live Free or Die (Trying)! Get the ‘woke’ government out of my… employment choices!

From a North Carolina native:
Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Nikki Haley Dives for the New Hampshire 'Libertarian' Primary Voters

The fact that not using the s-word is considered *shocking* is a sales pitch for a significant chunk of the GOP base. Haley says the Right things the Right way, and yet the lamestream media wants to chew on her ankles about their ‘woke’ obsession with Those People, just as Tucker Carlson warned them…

Reader Interactions

80Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life, they don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom.”

    Unless you’re pregnant.

  9. 9.

    satby

    @Baud: She was being the same opportunistic weathervane she’s being now. To try to curry favor with people who won’t vote for her anyway when the chips are down.

  10. 10.

    mrmoshpotato

    Nikki Haley Dives for the New Hampshire ‘Libertarian’ Primary Voters

    Like diving to catch a ball, or diving into a pool of shit?

  11. 11.

    satby

    So, if anyone is looking for a new series to binge, I’ve been enjoying Sweet Kaaram Coffee on Prime. It’s a buddy / road trip type picture, but the buddies are an Indian grandmother, her daughter-in-law, and her granddaughter; all escaping their constricted lives and rediscovering themselves as they drive from Chennai to Goa.

  12. 12.

    ColoradoGuy

    So the Republican party, the Party of Lincoln, is now completely stood on its head and is ignoring, minimizing, or actually defending slavery. It took 164 years and a lot of Russian input but here we are.

    Which explains the attraction of Putin. Russia has always been a society of czars, aristocrats and serfs, and that really appeals to the billionaire class and the MAGA base.

  13. 13.

    Tony Jay

    “Without the freedom to enslave the lazy thug  does freedom truly exist anymore?”

    Truly, madly, derply, the apotheosis of the Lost Cause mythology is the unchallengeable conviction that the Confederacy was fighting for the right to give little black boys and girls the ‘realistically tailored educational opportunities’ those hypocritical Abolitionists wanted to deny them. 

  16. 16.

    Ben Cisco

    I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people…

    Which is EXACTLY WHAT LINCOLN DID YOU FUCKING MUPPET!

    The only good thing coming out of this mess is watching Ms. Haley (daughter of an HBCU EDUCATOR) implode b/c she cannot abide my basic humanity and agency as a full-fledged member of this society. Screw her.

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    The @DeSantisWarRoom account is or was run by the repulsive and deranged Christina Pushaw, formerly the gov’s press sec and Twitter flying monkey. IIRC, the outfit was funded by the Never Back Down PAC, which appeared to be illegally (and ineptly!) running the DeSantis 2024 campaign until it collapsed due to infighting earlier this month. If DeSantis washes out as now appears likely, there will be some delicious finger-pointing and wig-snatching among the horribles who worked on the losing effort. Something to look forward to in the new year!

  18. 18.

    satby

    @ColoradoGuy: The Lost Causers started rewriting history pretty much as soon as Lincoln was assasinated. Allowing them to get away with displays of the traitor’s flag, erecting monuments to traitor generals, and teaching that the Civil War was a “War of Northern Aggression” over “states rights” not slavery all predate Russian interference. Letting a wound fester ultimately poisons the patient. And here we are.

  19. 19.

    p.a.

    If you are unfortunate enough to be around someone puking the “state’s rights” argument about 1861-1865, I’ve found an effective response is “a state’s right to do what?”   Did they really try to destroy the United States over a fucking tariff?  Really?

  21. 21.

    bjacques

    @p.a.: Somehow I doubt the CSA would have been very keen on states’ rights within its own domain

     

    EDIT: Nikki will always be the warmup act.

  22. 22.

    Barbara

    She doesn’t believe or care about 90% of what she says but feels compelled to say it anyway and this veneer of dishonesty is going to be exposed the more she goes off script. The cause of the Civil War is hardly controversial in NH.

  23. 23.

    Rusty

    @Baud: Or want to marry the person they dont like, or want to have a kind of sex they don’t like, or want to avoid pregnancy, or want to have sex at all, or read a book they don’t like, or are ok with your kid reading a book they don’t like, or express your gender that don’t they don’t like, or wear clothes they don’t like, or have your hair the way they don’t like, and so on and so on.  You will be of course “free” to have you and your children go without food, housing, healthcare or housing.  “Free” to work in dangerous conditions, work for pennies, be mercilessly exploited by your employer and such because you would naturally make such choices if you were really free.  Same goes for the relationship with your landlord and creditors.  When it comes out of Haleys mouth the word freedom is the empties word in the English language.

  24. 24.

    trnc

    @Baud: Priorities! Pregnant people totally have a few rights, but republicans’ right to force a kid into the world in order to make them a talking point about child obesity at some point outweigh them.

  25. 25.

    trnc

    @p.a.: If you are unfortunate enough to be around someone puking the “state’s rights” argument about 1861-1865, I’ve found an effective response is “a state’s right to do what?”   Did they really try to destroy the United States over a fucking tariff?  Really?

    Be sure to ask them why slavery figured so prominently in SC’s secession announcement.

  28. 28.

    Patricia Kayden

    Haley refusing to state historical facts about the Civil War makes her a front runner for Republican voters. They’re totally down with repressing and whitewashing history.
    I’m waiting to hear that the voter who corrected her is getting death threats from cultists.

  30. 30.

    hells littlest angel

    @Baud:Is @DeSantisWarRoom a real account or a parody?

     

    Oh, it’s a real account, but it takes a LOT of fucking brass for them to dunk on Nikki Haley for not saying slavery is bad. But maybe they think she blew it failing to mention all the good things about slavery, like job training.

  32. 32.

    p.a.

    @trnc: Mississippi’s is “the best” one; right to the point without S.C’s verbose legalism.

     

    Can Nimarata can become SC governor again, in case this presidenting thing fails?  Her response would be the “right” response there.

  33. 33.

    Geminid

    “Turkey Solons Play Chicken With US”

    Turkiye’s Grand National Assembly just went into recess until January 16, without approving Swedish Nato accession. Key U.S. lawmakers have placed holds on the sale F-16s to Turkiye and the Turkish government is leveraging Sweden’s Nato accession in order to obtain the fighters.

    So now the ball is in Congress’s court. The holds that Senators Cardiff and Risch and Reps. McCaul and Meeks have placed on the F-16s are not legally binding (I think), but they must be taken into account by the Biden administration. The tricky part is that the lawmakers’ objections extend beyond the question of Sweden’s Nato membership.

  34. 34.

    lowtechcyclist

    @trnc: ​
     

    Be sure to ask them why slavery figured so prominently in SC’s secession announcement.

    True for the secession announcements of all the Confederate states, IIRC. They all either say it was about slavery, or it was about slavery and some other issues, but they go on to say slavery was the biggie. And of course there’s Alexander Stephens’ Cornerstone speech.

    Secession announcements of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas

    Yeah, all about slavery.

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    @p.a.: You can also vaporize the bullshit “states’ rights” argument by whipping out a phone and pulling up the text of CSA VP Alexander Stephens’ “Cornerstone Speech,” which was delivered prior to the attack on Fort Sumter. It outlines the differences between the U.S. and Confederate constitutions (some state rights taken away, others added — all to support slavery) and explicitly states the rationale behind secession:

    The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution…

    Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

    Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

    Stephens, who helped create the CSA constitution and was an original signer, goes on and on like that. It’s incontrovertible evidence of what secession was all about, not that any “states rights” proponent argues in good faith.

  39. 39.

    LiminalOwl

    I recommend the alternate-history novel Underground Airlines, by Ben H. Winters. The divergence point is that Lincoln was assassinated in the run-up to the Civil War, leading to compromise with the slave states instead.  Now (2010, I think), the uneasy compromise perdures, and the narrator… has to deal with it, for reasons. A very painful but IMO ultimately worthwhile reading experience.

    I read it a few years ago and still refer to the “Hard Four” (those which still legally and formally enslave people, in the world of the book).  Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama IIRC.

  41. 41.

    Johannes

    @ColoradoGuy: I have thought for some time now that Lincoln’s worst error (besides attending “Our American Cousin”) was his insistence that the Confederacy be reinstated as full states before Reconstruction was fully complete; a few decades as territories might have made a difference.

  42. 42.

    Chris

    I appreciate this if only because I finally have a simple, easy, and recent quote that I can point to every time an NPR-brained liberal starts talking to me about how Nikki Haley is a fascinating “moderate” who could totally save the GOP from its crazy fascism.

  43. 43.

    Chris

    @ColoradoGuy:

    So the Republican party, the Party of Lincoln, is now completely stood on its head and is ignoring, minimizing, or actually defending slavery. It took 164 years and a lot of Russian input but here we are.

    For maximal irony, in the 1860s, Russia was one of the only European monarchist regimes that was actually sympathetic to Lincoln.

    (Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia during the time of the American Civil War.  Not hard to imagine that he saw some parallels between his liberalizing efforts and Lincoln’s).

  44. 44.

    RevRick

    @p.a.: Oh, the “states rights” argument was always a lie, because the South was deadset against the rights of New England states to give the vote to free black men, the right of NY to enact its personal liberty law (which freed slaves as soon as they set foot in NY), the rights of Northern states to demand due process for alleged escaped slaves. Moreover, let’s not forget that the South insisted upon the most draconian federal law ever passed in American history: the Fugitive Slave Act.

  45. 45.

    EarthWindFire

    @p.a.: This. Then when they hem and haw, tell them no one gave a damn about the northern states’ rights and made them enforce the south’s laws in the name of slavery (Fugitive Slave Act). They hate that.

    Edit: And I see RevRick got there too.

  46. 46.

    Geminid

    @Johannes: Lincoln’s worst error was choosing Andrew Johnson for his Vice President. It was Congress who allowed the readmisson of Southern states, by passing the Reconstruction Act in 1867.

  47. 47.

    Another Scott

    @ColoradoGuy: She was the GQP governor of South Carolina.  There’s no way a question about the Civil War is going to trip her up at a campaign event.

    Might as well ask her whether she likes puppies and kittens.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  52. 52.

    Another Scott

    @Patricia Kayden:

    From a comment in the morning news roundup at BlueVirginia.US:

    lowkell
    2 hours ago

    “It’s shameful that the GOP refuses to give up the white supremacist Lost Cause.”

    BTW, maybe a reporter should ask Glenn Youngkin what he thinks about his pal Nikki Haley’s moronic, obnoxious comments?

    Ooh, that would be fun to see…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  53. 53.

    Chris

    @Geminid:

    This.

    There’s rarely been as stark a contrast of “the right man in the right place at the right time” and “the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time” as President Lincoln being followed immediately by President Johnson.

  57. 57.

    artem1s

    @p.a.:

    the “state’s rights” argument about 1861-1865,

    11 of the 13 confederate states articles of succession stated the reason they were leaving the Union was to preserve slavery. And the constitution of the Confederacy itself did not recognize their states’ right to determine whether they could abolish slavery or retain it. Their individual state legislatures weren’t allowed to discuss or pass any laws restricting the owning of slaves. They did not believe in states rights. Their sole reason for existing was to keep slavery alive.

  58. 58.

    zhena gogolia

    The NYT opinion page told me last night that voters want “order,” and they feel Biden hasn’t delivered it, so they’ll take a chance with Trump again.

  59. 59.

    Yutsano

    @Chris: ​If my memory is correct, Lincoln didn’t have a choice. I could be wrong but I think at the time of Lincoln’s election the vice-president had to come from the second place party. Andrew Johnson was a Democrat. He would have opposed Reconstruction (and he did) and once the Southern states were fully reinstated* into Congress he could reverse a lot of Reconstruction laws. So it really shouldn’t be pinned on Lincoln for having Johnson as his successor.

    *The Southern states really should have been restricted in their powers until Reconstruction was complete. Unfortunately there is no mechanism in the Constitution that would have supported that and the Taney court would have sided with the South once they sued for full rights.

  60. 60.

    Bupalos

     

    @zhena gogolia: I’m not going to predict the future, but I think that is overall the most powerful electoral dynamic  that’s going to be at work over coming decades. As as insane as it seems, I can see voters grasping for Trump on those grounds in 2024.

  61. 61.

    Matt

    Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life, they don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do.

    If she REALLY wants to swing for the fences with the “libertarian” crowd, she’s going to need to spell out her opposition to age-of-consent laws explicitly.

  63. 63.

    TriassicSands

    Ask a Republican voter which is more important whether Haley mentioned slavery as a cause of the Civil War or the price of gasoline and…you know the answer.

    I found it interesting that Haley doesn’t think government should tell anyone what to do except when it comes to women and pregnancy. Then, it’s Big Brother in the Womb.

  65. 65.

    Barbara

    @TriassicSands: ​I think the problem for Haley is that she’s trying to appeal to so-called crossover voters without actually alienating Trump diehards and she just proved what a monumental task that might be.

  66. 66.

    Another Scott

    TheHill has a story about her being in damage control mode now, saying of course it was about slavery – everyone knows that – but now it’s about Freedom argle bargle. So, she gets to be in the news again for another day.

    Win – Win!!

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  67. 67.

    cmorenc

    Problem with media coverage of Haley is that against the scale of the other GOP presidential candidates, she is very moderate, as too she is compared with most other southern-state GOP governors or ex-governors.  Both she and Younkin (Va.) benefit from the seemingly stark contrast with abrasive fire-breathers like DeSantis and Abbott, and especially Trump.  And it’s likely true that is she somehow got the GOP nomination and won the Presidency, her Administration would not be nearly so abrasively hard-edged as Trump II or President Puddin’ Boots.  But nonetheless, underneath the more civil superficial surface, her policies would be far to the right of the center of the political spectrum, and her chameleon act won’t successfully hide her need to often cater to barbed-wire hard-right elements in the GOP.

  69. 69.

    Geminid

    @Yutsano: Lincoln could have chosen a Republican for Vice President; his first one, Hannibal Hamlin, was a Republican. He chose Johnson for political reasons, not legal ones.

  70. 70.

    sdhays

    @Yutsano: No, you’re getting confused with original design of the infallible Founders where the runner-up was the the VP. Johnson was Lincoln’s running mate as a kind of unity ticket since Johnson had stayed loyal to the union despite his state seceding.

  71. 71.

    Lyrebird

    @Ben Cisco: ​The only good thing coming out of this mess is watching Ms. Haley (daughter of an HBCU EDUCATOR) implode b/c she cannot abide my basic humanity and agency as a full-fledged member of this society.

     

    SPEAK.

    I consider Haley worse than Palin. She (N. Haley) has far more reason to know better, and she is not just diving into the racist sht she’s slicing up bread and selling sht sandwiches with a big smile.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    Haley is a power hungry monster. But just about all of them on the other side are…

    MoJo from March 2016:

    South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Saturday told Republicans in Florida that Donald Trump is promoting the kind of “hate” that can lead to violence, and reminded them of the shooting of black churchgoers in Charleston last year.

    Haley was speaking at a county GOP dinner in The Villages, the world’s largest retirement community, on behalf of Sen. Marco Rubio. Like Rubio, who tore into Trump (and his protesters) at an earlier event in Tampa, Haley wanted voters to think hard about the footage of Trump rallies they’d seen on TV.

    “I just want to be honest about the leader we have now,” she told the almost exclusively senior-citizen crowd. “After seeing what happened in Chicago, after seeing what happened in North Carolina, after seeing what happened in Ohio, we are are seeing a division that is not us. That is not who we are as Republicans. And we are seeing a division that is dangerous. We are seeing a division that’s got hate to it. And I want to tell you what that division can mean.”

    […]

    Whoops! He won the nomination, so we better get on the train or we’ll be left behind!!1 Yay Unity!!11

    Of course it’s who you are as Republicans, Nikki. And you were more than happy to be part of it.

    For all her crocodile tears, she had no qualms at all about supporting him and working for him. None whatsoever.

    Similarly for Rubio, being in lock-step with him in the Senate.

    It’s all opportunism.

    Sensible people don’t vote for obvious power hungry liars when better alternatives – Biden and the Democrats – are right there!

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  74. 74.

    Subsole

    @artem1s:

    Hell, their constitution didn’t permit secession, either.

    And people tried. There were at least 2 groups that tried to split off from the Confederacy.

  75. 75.

    Bupalos

    @Another Scott: that party has gone populist know-nothing, which is a huge multiplier on this….but you really can’t be a natuonal politician of any stripe without an unheathy dose of ego, ambition, and moral flexibility. And all of that is human. All too human.

  76. 76.

    Another Scott

    @Bupalos: Sure, to a point.

    I’m reminded of an admonition from an old timer that I got long ago – “There’s stuff that’s illegal, and there’s stuff that is ILLEGAL – know the difference.”

    Too many in the GQP don’t know the difference, or maybe more precisely, know the difference but don’t care.

    TIFG’s power-hungry enablers are in the latter category and are dangerous.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  77. 77.

    smintheus

    Blaming the racism of Haley and national Republicans on New Hampshire voters is really quite the take.

  78. 78.

    Paul in KY

    @Barbara: NH Repubs are probably in general about as assholish as the others, but NH sent alot of soldiers to die in the Civil War. They know that…

    She doesn’t know or care.

  79. 79.

    Paul in KY

    @trnc: You got tarriffed when you tried to import your new house wench! Balderdash on that taxation, good sir!!! Balderdash I say! Hrrumph and all that.

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