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You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Late Night Open Thread: The Haley 2028 Campaign

Late Night Open Thread: The Haley 2028 Campaign

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This is, IMO, an acceptably anodyne GOP response to the Alabama ruling. Whatever the retrograde revanchists might choose to believe, for every LGBT+ couple or unacceptable older woman trying for a family they ‘don’t deserve’, there are at least a dozen anxious normie couples who’ve cleaned out their 401ks, mortgaged their homes, and GoFundMe’d their families. The original petition was brought by three couples who wanted compensation for the accidental loss of their stored embryos. The ruling is already screwing up the plans & the lives of Alabama residents and their doctors, but insisting that frozen embryos are not just tissue is not a stance that will harm Haley’s chances, especially among Republican voters.

This remains the real problem for Haley, during this particular electoral cycle:


… I realize that not voting for a convicted criminal should not get you a cookie in an advanced democratic republic, but these are the parameters Haley has chosen. It’s another attempt to middle the issue of the Republican frontrunner—demonstrate your performative independence, but throw the MAGA hordes a well-gnawed bone by setting their god-emperor free to roam the country stroking their g-spots and selling them overpriced, ugly-ass footwear. Reality, however, bellows at us that a) such a move will not gull the rubes into supporting a President Haley, let alone a candidate Haley, and b) that, once freed, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago is better than even money to tour the country beating the everlasting aspirations out of a Haley Administration. Gratitude is not in the man. It was bred out of him two generations ago…

Update, 3:45pm: Nevertheless, Haley vowed to campaign on in an unusual “State of the Race” speech in Greenville on Tuesday…

“If I was running for a bogus reason, I would have dropped out a long time ago. The rest of the fellas already did that. They have their own plans. I don’t judge them. But I’m still here, fighting for what I know is right. And I don’t care what the party leaders and political leaders want. I’ll keep fighting until the American people close the door. That day is not today. And it won’t be on Saturday. Not by a longshot.”

The “rest of the fellas” ran for “bogus reasons,” but she’s not going to judge them.

The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.

Reader Interactions

81Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    Read someplace that Haley has publicly stated she would pardon Dolt 45 when and if he is convicted for anything (Georgia state case need not apply).

  3. 3.

    gene108

    She’s picked a lane to be the anti-MAGA Republican who took on Donald Trump. It may give her a head start for 2028, assuming the criminal trials hurt Trump somehow or he keels over dead. I think keeling over dead unlikely because he’s survived this long with an unhealthy diet, no exercise, a ton of stress, anger issues, and other things that would’ve given most men serious health problems at his age.

  5. 5.

    gene108

    @NotMax:

    Other than pointing out the obvious regarding Trump’s issues being President again, she’s not doing anything to defy Republican orthodoxy or is trying* minimize the damage with tepid Trump supporters for a future run.

    *ETA

  7. 7.

    Chetan Murthy

    @gene108: I’m not even so sure she’s decided to be “the anti-MAGA ….”.  I mean, is there anything that MAGA hates, that she doesn’t hate?  I mean *domestically*, of course.  Sure, she’s not signed-up for lickin’ Putin’s ass.  Sure.  But domestically (for the blood-and-soil demographic) she seems to be hewing the MAGAt line.  Only, she argues she’ll be more effective, less chaotic, etc.

  9. 9.

    Shalimar

    @gene108: Trump most likely does have serious health issues.  His chances of living another year probably aren’t significantly lower than a much healthier person who has made it to 77.  Maybe 70-80% compared to 90%.  The longer you speculate into the future though, the less likely Trump is going to be here.

  10. 10.

    Arclite

    If there’s a fire, and if it’s a choice between a cooler full of fertilized eggs and a single toddler, I’m taking the cooler every time. I’d be sacrificing one to save dozens of lives!

  11. 11.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax: Hell, I’m not sure she’s even offering *that* to the MAGAts.  Sure, she’s gonna cosplay as offering that to squishy independents and Dems, absolutely.  But for MAGAts, I think she’s offering “I’m better than him at hating all the things you hate, pick me, pick me, PICK MEEEEEE!”

    I think it was telling how she latched right onto that Alabama SC decision about embryos having full personhood: she didn’t have to do that, but I bet it was just too juicy an oppty to outflank TFG from the right.  And she had to walk it right back a bit, even so.  But boy howdy, she’ll be tellin’ the droolers all about it, I bet.

  12. 12.

    Chetan Murthy

    I was thinking about that Alabama SC decision some, and it seems like the real attack point isn’t against families and their ability to use IVF.  Instead, it’s against women and their education and careers.  If a woman has to make a hard, hard, hard choice between having a child early in her adult life, and a career, that’s going to be a tough one, isn’t it?  B/c if you choose the education/career, you might never be able to have children.  I remember reading about how women at Apple and maybe a few other tech/biotech companies were freezing their eggs, so they could really focus on their careers and then have kids later.  That’ll be out-of-the-question, if the AL SC has their way, eh?

    Force women back into the kitchen: barefoot and pregnant.  That’s the real gambit.

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    @a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2024/02/22/late-night-open-thread-the-haley-2028-campaign/#comment-9113125″>Chetan Murthy

    Grasping at ever shorter straws.

  15. 15.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax: I’ve read that there’s a rising number of women who have children without a male being closely involved at all.  I mean, I know a woman who did that: had kids via IVF.  And they’re great kids, she’s doing a great job.  No man involved.  That also will be much harder, b/c again a woman will have to do it while she’s naturally most fertile, and won’t be able to use IVF in the later less-fertile years.  And those later years are when she’d have the money to be able to do it without a man, b/c she had a remunerative career.

  17. 17.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax:

    Coding.

    Not even that: that takes years of training to be good at.  And a kind of focus that is completely detrimental to having kids.  I remember reading women writers talking about how having kids was so incompatible with writing, b/c writing takes *time* and *focus*, and that meant they couldn’t pay attention to their kids.  Of course, their *husbands* weren’t, y’know, taking up that slack, or even their equal half, but that was unstated b/c obvious.  And there’s the other evidence: when paternity leave was introduced for tenure-track faculty (in addition to maternity leave), it turned out that new fathers that took paternity leave *increased* their publication rate, whereas for new mothers, their publication rate *decreased*.  For the obvious reason (the new dads didn’t actually spent their leave taking care of their new child, but rather, writing, haha).

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    @

    And a kind of focus that is completely detrimental to having kids.

    “We’ll iron out the most egregious bugs in beta testing.”
    //

  20. 20.

    Basilisc

    Remember too that, pre-Trump, the GOP had a long tradition of the second-place finisher becoming the front-runner in the next cycle, if there’s no incumbent. Ford –> Reagan, Reagan –> Bush Sr, Bush Sr –> Dole, Bush Jr –> McCain, McCain –> Romney. So maybe she wants to stay in long enough for everyone to agree that she finished second, so she’s in good shape for 2028. And who knows, maybe the guy will self-destruct before the convention.

  21. 21.

    Jay

    It’s a weird thing for me.

    I was always ambivalent about having kids.

    Now, don’t get me wrong, I am great with kids and babies, even rebellious teens.

    But, I always figured that you had to plan to have kids. Housing, single income, etc.

    When my Ex was deciding to bail or not, she decided that a kid would “fix” things.

    I said basically, “hell no”.

    When T and I got together, she said she didn’t want to have kids, (genetic issues). I was fine with that.

    My Ex-brother* told here that the three things I wanted was kids, dogs and a rural house in the Interior. She told him, no kids, I have cats and I like living in the Peoples Republic of Commercial Drive.

    Well, I got Surprise Cats. Then Dogs, then a rural place in the Interior that burned us out.

    No kids, fine with that.

    *ex-brother, went from becoming a annoying Christian, (dude, I know your history) to full on wingnut.

  23. 23.

    Chris T.

    There will be two candidates in November. One will be old, mush-brained, doddering and incompetent; and the other will be Joe Biden. Well, unless the orange clown dies before then. My bet remains that he has maybe another 2.5 years left at most.

  24. 24.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax: Your comment reminded me of this: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/820/believe-in-me

    It’s a This American Life episode about the Michigan GOP and the takeover by Karamo, the ensuing chaos, and what’s been happening since.  It’s really interesting, and you get a real sense for the people involved.  I won’t hide that I was rooting for injuries and wasn’t disappointed.  So in that sense, it was pretty satisfying.  One thing that comes thru: yeah, in a really strong sense, the MAGAts just aren’t gonna wait their turn: they simply don’t believe in that sorta shit.

  25. 25.

    EngineerScotty

    @Chetan Murthy: [Anything MAGA hates that she doesn’t?] Uppity brown-skinned ladies such as Nikki Haley?

    My position remains that a lot of MAGA world, even if she is excused from her apostasy of running against Donald Trump, will not be enthusiastic about voting for a nonwhite nonguy, at least for POTUS.  (VP may be a different matter).  There’s enough Democrats who are seemingly unwilling to vote for Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket and Team D is supposed to be the party of tolerance; I would expect a party that pretty much openly embraces racists to be an obstacle for Haley.

    They might still vote for her, especially if she’s running as the opposition party and the GOP is motivated to evict the Dems from power.  And certain respectable types may prefer her.

    But it will be an issue for her in the Republican Party.

     

     

    @Chetan Murthy:

  27. 27.

    EngineerScotty

    @Chetan Murthy: There are a LOT of people on the right who want to ban IVF because either:

    • They view it as causing abortion, as not all collected embryos are successfully implanted, and many are actively culled by the process.
    • It allows same-sex couples an avenue to have children.  (Surrogacy, even if not involving IVF of the surrogate, is despised for this same reason).

    Punishing delayed childbirth might be a motivating factor for some, particularly the intellectuals in the movement, but most righties I encounter who object to IVF do so for one of the above reasons.

  28. 28.

    Chetan Murthy

    @EngineerScotty:

    My position remains that a lot of MAGA world, even if she is excused from her apostasy of running against Donald Trump, will not be enthusiastic about voting for a nonwhite nonguy, at least for POTUS

    That TAL episode spends a decent bit of time talking about and to a couple of Arab-American Republicans who run for and get seats as vice-chairs of the state party, only to ….. well, learn first-hand that the GOP is a white christian nationalist party, period.  period. PERIOD.  As I was listening to it, I kept on saying to myself: “my dudes, what the fuck were you thinking?”

    And (like you) that’s what I wanna say to Nikki.

    P.S. the segment about these two young guys and their travails is pretty amusing, for me, a Dem.  I mean, it’s everything I expected the G(r)OP to be like, and these guys are finding out, on the inside, and all they want is to be just like them!  If I didn’t despise them so much, if I didn’t want them all to suffer random woodchipper accidents, I’d almost (almost!) feel sorry for them.

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    Dolt 45 obliterated any “It’s my turn” queue. And it ain’t coming back.

    Who was the GOP runner-up in 2012 (thus the putative heir apparent for 2016)? Memory says Santorum, but could easily be wrong.

    I suppose I could look it up, but am going to take another stab at going back to sleep.

  31. 31.

    Gretchen

    @Chetan Murthy: good point. If you’d gotten married at 18 like a proper woman you wouldn’t need IVF after your ovaries have dried up. A lot of the commentary about Taylor Swift among the man- children was why would anyone even want her after she had so many boyfriends and she’s a dried-up 33 year old?

  33. 33.

    Jay

    @Gretchen:

    Let me know, when she is past, 36.

    Man, got divorced at, 42.

    Online link ups.

    Wow, more more link ups, and better, even some relationships  than 1978 to 2003.

    Luckily, met T, 24 years now.

  35. 35.

    Viva BrisVegas

    The Republican line on “what is a woman” should be turned around on them as “what is a baby”. Preferably with a picture of an actual baby and a dewar flask.

  36. 36.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Haley’s stances here are exactly what I would expect from a GOP primary candidate.  Be hardcore anti-abortion, lambast your opponent, but make it clear to the faithful that you hate Democrats more than the most evil Republican.  You remain loyal to the highest principle – total war against the n-lovers.

    This Alabama ruling is going to cause Hell.  It’s ‘embryos are legally living humans.’

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Force women back into the kitchen: barefoot and pregnant.  That’s the real gambit.

    I think that’s seen as a side benefit.  Sure, absolutely, they want that.  The thinking involved is more ideological.  ‘Embryos are living humans’ is an anti-abortion stance, therefor it will be followed.  Sluts must be punished.

    Or as my evangelical great-aunts who raised my mother put it, “You play, you pay.”

  37. 37.

    Baud

    There might be a few GOP moderates left when it comes to democracy or sucking Putin’s dick.

    There are none when it comes to abortion.

  39. 39.

    Gretchen

    @Frankensteinbeck: wow. So it has nothing to do with the sanctity of life. It’s just punishment for sex.

    a Heritage video came out yesterday saying they should ban the pill to eliminate recreational sex. Good luck with that.

  41. 41.

    Geminid

    CIA Director William Burns will be back in Paris Friday to confer with Egyptian, Israeli and Qatari officials. They want to get the Qatari-mediated ceasefire for Gaza back on track and in place before March 8, the start of Ramadan. Barak Ravid reports on this in an Axios article.

  43. 43.

    Rusty

    @Chetan Murthy: Women having kids without a guy has been going on for a while.  I’m in my late 50’s, just off the top of my head I know 3 women from college and one from high school that as they approached 40 all had a kid with no guy in sight.  How they did it, IVF, artificial insemination, friend with benefits,  isn’t my business, but they all raised their kids without a hint of “dad”.  Mature, dedicated moms, financial stability,  the kids have all turned out well and are in or heading to college this fall.  The right wants to eliminate these kinds of situations, along with LGBTQ parent families (I have a gay friend that used a surrogate and a trans family member married to another trans and they used IVF.)  It’s not just “abortion”, this is about getting rid of any family that isn’t man, woman and children.

  44. 44.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: In other diplomatic news, Turkiye and the Somalian central government signed a security treaty whereby Turkiye will assume control of Somalian coastal waters for 10 years. This seems intended to counter Somaliland’s resent assertion of independence by way of a treaty with Ethiopia.

  46. 46.

    Geminid

    I think Haley will do fairly well in Virginia next month; maybe not win, but perform closer to the New Hampshire result than Saturday’s likely South Carolina outcome.

    I hope she does. I want to see Trump work for this nomination.

  47. 47.

    Matt McIrvin

    The thing about this kind of ruling is that it raises so many questions. If a blastula is a child from the moment of conception, then Homo sapiens is not a bipedal primate, but primarily a microscopic organism, and the majority of people who ever lived died as a result of failure to attach to the uterine wall.

  48. 48.

    Shalimar

    @SiubhanDuinne: 2012 runner-up was Santorum, 2016 runner-up was Cruz.  Both ultimate examples of “what the fuck were we thinking?”  I personally would blame the shrinking quality of the candidates for not going with next up before I would give credit to Trump for killing it.

  51. 51.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I’ve actually run into some Haley Bros on Republican Ukraine-Hawk Twitter, Randy Mott and a few others. Reagan Republicans.

  52. 52.

    JPL

    @Geminid: Early voting in GA is underway and although tempted, I won’t cross over and vote for her.    Her support of cells are people too, convinced me not to.

  53. 53.

    Geminid

    @JPL: I think strategic cross-over voting is seldom a significant factor in primaries. It’s something that gets talked about more than actually happens.

    These primaries could be different though, especially in Virginia where there’s no party registration and primaries are totally open. A Virginia jackal knows a couple Democrats who early-voted for Haley, and there could be a lot more. Haley will attract more Independents than Democrats, and self-described Indies are about a third of the electorate here.

  54. 54.

    clay

    So all this talk about Haley staying in the race to screw with Trump… I just heard her on NPR saying that she thought Biden being in office was a bigger threat than Trump.  (Biden has “caused chaos”, somehow.). Haley is, and remains, awful.

  56. 56.

    Ramalama

    @Arclite: I tried a similar argument (a la Atrios) with an evangelical member of my family. Argument broke down into non-words. I love this member of my family and it’s the only time this loved one was at a loss for words.

  57. 57.

    Geminid

    @clay: Nikki Haley’s a politician and I interpret her public statements in that light. If she really believed Biden was that big a threat, Haley would drop out and let Trump cruise to the convention.

  58. 58.

    Ramalama

    @Jay:

    I like living in the Peoples Republic of Commercial Drive.

    I feel like I should know what locale you’re referring to but crickets. You’re in Western Canadia, right? Commercial Drive means … pavement? Note: I live on a dirt road, so not making judgements.

  59. 59.

    Ramalama

    Is nobody nervous that should Trump eat a Hamburger from Heaven, that Haley will be the next logical choice and suddenly a whole stain of voters will move from Ds to Rs because Haley is young and (im)moderate?

  61. 61.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Ramalama: There would probably be some anti-Trump Independents who’d vote for Haley; conversely, there’s is cohort of Trump loyalists who would stay home rather than vote for a Trump critic like Haley. I think this would be a wash.

  63. 63.

    hueyplong

    Maybe she’s best seen as revealing just how absurd you have to be to exist as a non-Trump option in Trump’s GOP.  Christie demonstrated how your parents’ GOPer draws about 1% trying it via the old school GOP style. He couldn’t even attract behind-the-scenes establishment donor money.

  64. 64.

    hueyplong

    @evodevo: I’m not 100% sure that’s true. The modern GOP is tolerant of other races willing to join the Waffen SS.  What it won’t tolerate is criticism of their orange god.

  65. 65.

    AM in NC

    Every reporter needs to ask Haley (and every other forced-birth zealot):  if there was a house fire and the house contained a box of 10,000 embryos in petrie dishes and one 3 day old baby in a bouncy seat, and there was only the time/ability to grab one of them, you’re telling me you’d grab the box and let the baby burn to death?  Because according to your stated position you’d have to let the baby burn to death in agony, right?   If embryos are the same thing as a living child, as you just claimed,  you are telling me that you would grab the box of petrie dishes and let the baby burn to death, right?

    MAKE THEM OWN THIS MONSTROUS POSITION.  Even THEY know it is monstrous and that they are lying when they spew it.

  66. 66.

    trnc

    I also pressed Haley on her continued support of Trump if he were to be the GOP nominee and find himself convicted of any number of counts he’s currently facing. “Those are hypotheticals,” she told me.

    The response to this nonsense should be “Presidents have to deal with hypotheticals every day. Are you not ready for that part of the job?”

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @evodevo: Just because I left something out doesn’t mean I “forgot” it. I was making a simple point and not a comprehensive analysis of the situation.

  68. 68.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Cutting the baby in half inevitably results in a dead baby.

    Though not if it’s still at the embryo stage, which is true of all the millions of babies resting in their Dewar flasks at liquid-nitrogen temperatures.

    I’ve been wondering how Alabama fertility clinics are going to handle their stock. I think the best way would be for them to ship all the fertilized eggs back to the original donors — parents should take responsibility for their children, right? Admittedly it might make thousands of (relatively) affluent Alabama residents suddenly, deeply aware of Republican policies, but c’est la vie.

  70. 70.

    Soprano2

    @Chetan Murthy: The main thing I got from that episode was that their belief in conspiracy theories hurts them a lot because it keeps them from working with each other. Plus, they never take responsibility for anything, it’s always someone else’s fault when anything bad happens.

  71. 71.

    Albatrossity

    A presidential candidate, running for the office the first time, who refuses to answer questions with the “Those are hypothetical” malarkey, should immediately be pressed with “Every question about what you would do as president is a hypothetical question. You’ve answered lots of hypothetical questions already. Answer this one, please”

    Weasels, all of them.

  77. 77.

    wjca

    @Baud: There might be a few GOP moderates left when it comes to democracy or sucking Putin’s dick.

    There are none when it comes to abortion.

    If you are talking about GOP politicians and what they believe (or, at least claim to believe), then sure.  But then there are Republican non-politicians.  I know more than a few whose position on abortion is roughly:

    Abortion should be legal.  Period.  In the unlikely (make that extremely, wildly unlikely) that the fetus is viable with no more medical assistance that a preemie, then that medical assistance should be provided.

    Not what *I* would call anti-abortion at all.

  80. 80.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Matt McIrvin: …the majority of people who ever lived died as a result of failure to attach to the uterine wall.

    Oh, that’s an easy one: G*d chose for them to die. The owner of the prospective host womb is only blameless if she didn’t do anything that would render said womb less, um, welcoming. If she did, she chose to usurp G*d’s role in deciding which prospective H. saps would live and which would die, and is therefore a murderer.

    Can’t get pregnant via the tried&true age-old method? G*d doesn’t want you to bear children. Raped by your stepfather, brother, father, acquaintance or stranger, and find yourself “in a family way”? G*d has decided you will bear that child.

    Tl;dr version: G*d gets to choose. You don’t. Period.

    This desultory atheist wonders whether the antique “G*d of the Gaps” justification for religion, having been steadily hounded from burrow to bush whenever mere mortals have found reasons behind puzzling phenomena attributed to the intervention of a Supreme Being, isn’t being superseded by a “G*d of the Odds” narrative, :in which

    G*d runs a multiversal Casino whose every outcome is determined (or predetermined). Mere mortals have been given free will, but are forbidden to affect the probabilities of the rackets games in any way, or research when and how The Big Guy/Gal might have a thumb on the cosmic scales, under pain of having their tukhises tossed out into the outer dorkness.

    Which will sound familiar to anyone conversant with Genesis 2:4-3:24.

    And if this abomination of a political piety-party gets its way with this, even women who accept or even welcome pregnancy would be at risk of prosecution if anything goes wrong – and would have to prove a negative (that they did nothing untoward to affect the gestating whateveryouwannacallit) to escape being convicted of (at a minimum) involuntary blastular** slaughter.

    ** I always thought blastula was a vampire with access to explosives. Silly me…

  81. 81.

    jayne

    I know it’s an extremely minor and petty thing compared to… every opinion and political view that she holds. But dear god, I can’t stand Nikki Haley’s voice. She sounds like every 90s standup comic’s sarcastic impression of a nagging wife.

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