This morning, Nikki Haley made it official and hopped into the early stage of the 2024 GOP primary against her former boss, Donald Trump. Ed provided a long and thoughtful analysis of her prospects as well as the obstacles she’ll be facing. He also pointed us to Duane’s pros and cons of a Haley candidacy for VIP members and it’s also worth a look. (Or perhaps a reason to consider signing up if you’re not a member. And if you use the promo code BEATENPATH you’ll get a 40% discount!) But being the long-winded contrarian that I am, I wanted to share some of my own observations.

The first point I wanted to touch on is one aspect of Ed’s analysis in which he points to Haley’s political resume and the amount of time she’s spent “on the sidelines,” as some people are (correctly) putting it. As a reminder, here are the pertinent dates that Ed included.

The biggest question about Haley, though, will be her ability to compete on a national platform after having spent the last several years out of the public eye. It has been over four years since she held any public office, and six years since she left South Carolina’s governor’s office. While Trump will remain relevant no matter what thanks to his core MAGA loyalists and DeSantis’ relevancy may not yet have peaked, Haley’s been essentially on the sidelines for a long while.

I will agree that American politics morphs rapidly and can frequently turn on a dime. And far too many voters are open to jumping on the bandwagon with the next shiny object that comes down the road. Four years can be a political eternity, so being out of the public eye for that long could definitely be a detriment. But with that said, it really hasn’t been all that long and she’s kept busy during her time in the private sector.

Personally, I think the impact of her hiatus will all come down to how she handles the early stages of the campaign. The launch video was a good start and she’s really only sharing the media spotlight with Trump at the moment. Will she be able to leverage that press vacuum significantly to her advantage? The opportunity is there if her team can come up with ways to generate some eye-catching headlines without going too far overboard and giving the impression that she’s begging for attention. Personally, based on her previous history, I think she’s smart enough to pull it off.

The elephant in the room was addressed by Ed in this passage. Haley can’t pretend that she wouldn’t know Trump from the guy selling her a coffee in the morning and, yes, she’ll need to be able to convince primary voters that she is cut from the same policy cloth as the Bad Orange Man, but she would be an upgrade.

Haley will have at least a taste of the conundrum likely to face Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, and even John Bolton if they follow through and enter the primary as well. They’re going to have to sell themselves as part of a return to the Trump agenda — but if Trump’s running, why wouldn’t voters choose the original? And if voters want a “new generation,” then they’re not going to embrace the Trump administration figures in the race, and Haley’s very much included in that class.

Ed points out that voters seeking to move on from the Trump era may mark down anyone who was in the administration with him. We can’t discount that factor, I agree. But at the same time, compared to Pence, Pompeo, and others, Nikki Haley was barely “in the Trump administration.” She was the UN Ambassador and spent a lot of her time far from the limelight of Trump World. That gives her at least some of the distance she’ll need without looking like a never-Trumper.

Haley brings some other things to the table that could give her an edge. Some people, such as our colleague Kurt Schlichter, have raised questions about her resume and her ability to expand the GOP message to win back working class, common sense voters who aren’t buying into the woke nation nonsense, particularly when compared to other, expected non-Trump candidates like Ron DeSantis. Kurt described her as being “so fake no one would believe it.”

That seems a bit harsh to me, but she will have to be prepared for reactions like that from inside the party. That will be particularly true of those who are either all-in on a second Trump term or lining up behind one of the other expected contenders. Ron DeSantis seems to be the flavor of the month at the moment, and he definitely may have some staying power. I like his style, but we’ll have to see how he does outside of his own backyard.

Finally, I would suggest that Nikki Haley brings a few things to the table that others may lack. Like DeSantis, she has both legislative and executive experience. But her time at the UN gives her some foreign policy bona fides that governors and congress members typically lack. Also, as much as it pains me to say, she may have a demographic advantage. It’s easy for the Democrats to rally against “yet another straight white man from the GOP.” And they lack the self-awareness to admit they’re backing a straight old white dude from the Democratic Party.

But after the experiences of 2016, many Democrats and their loyal stenographers in the legacy media will have to be wary about how hard they come after Haley. Do they really want to be seen as manning the barricades to prevent the ascendence of “The Historic First Female President” (with some non-white lineage to boot) while supporting the aforementioned cisgender, heterosexual, painfully white octagenarian currently hobbling around the Oval Office?  That may be a bit too much hypocrisy for even some of those people to swallow.

I don’t get to vote in the primary, not being a member of the GOP. But I will still stay involved. Just as in 2016 and 2020, I will wind up voting for the eventual Republican nominee, no matter which eventual candidate prevails, particularly if they are running against Joe Biden. But I’m not ruling out Nikki Haley by any means. I will be very interested to see how she does.