“And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you are wearing heels.” Nikki Haley released a 3-minute and 33-second video today that announces her candidacy for president. This comes a day before her official campaign announcement which she will make Wednesday in South Carolina. Is this how we do things now?

Maybe this is what generational change looks like. Traditionally, a candidate waits to announce his or her candidacy at an official rally or event and then the video ads begin. Haley looks eager to get started, which may play in her favor. She’s enthusiastically confident in her ability to run for president. I don’t think she has a chance to win the Republican nomination but I’ve been wrong before. It’s very early. There is a list of potential candidates on the Republican side. Trump jumped in before the midterm election run-offs were over as a move to discourage any competition in the primary. That didn’t work. I think his challengers will be prepared to do battle with him. They’ve seen his playbook twice now and they know what to expect. Right now, the only person Trump is attacking is Ron DeSantis because his final decision on running is the elephant in the room. DeSantis has momentum and Trump knows it.

Can Nikki Haley capture the imagination of voters? I think she can. Her personal story is a compelling one. Born and raised in a small town in South Carolina, she speaks to growing up being different. She doesn’t dwell on that, though, and repeats advice her mother gave her to use her differences as an opportunity. That is refreshing in today’s world where everyone wants to cash in on victimhood. She reminds me of a happy warrior, as Ronald Reagan used to say.

She is looking to project strength and the ability to fight evil, both domestically and abroad. Her experience as governor included handling a mass shooting at a church. Her resume also includes experience on the federal level during the Trump administration as the Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN. Her video does a good job of highlighting her resume. What she strongly gets across is the need for generational change in leadership. This is something that both Trump and Biden will have to handle. Most voters think they are both too old to be president, and that America needs a change at the top.

Republicans have to run someone who can beat Joe Biden, obviously. It’s enough to make me shudder to even think about another four years of Biden. Trump won’t beat Biden. Trump’s core supporters may still be in favor of voting for him but there is some real Trump fatigue now. Republican voters are ready to be inspired by someone new. My opinion is that it’s Ron DeSantis but others who may run are also capable of gaining support. As I said, Haley may be able to inspire voters. Who doesn’t remember how proud we were when she stood up to brutal tyrants at the U.N. during her time there? She was a fierce fighter for Trump’s America First policies.

Trump hasn’t gone after her too much. Yet. She has to explain why she is running against him now when she said in the past that she would not run if he does. Trump said she called him to tell him she was thinking of running and he told her to “go by your heart if you want to run.” He said she should do it.

In January, Trump said Haley called him to discuss the possibility of her running against him.

“Go by your heart if you want to run,” Trump said he told Haley. And he said he told her she “should do it.”

Trump then appeared to take a dig at Haley, noting that she had previously “publicly” said she wouldn’t seek the White House in 2024 if Trump ran again.

The former president again took a mild shot at Haley in an interview with Hugh Hewitt earlier this month, saying, “Nikki suffers from something that’s a very tough thing to suffer from: She’s overly ambitious.”

“Overly ambitious”, eh? That’s an unusual criticism, especially from Trump. Shouldn’t a presidential candidate be ambitious?

Haley will raise her national profile and remind those who may have forgotten about her resume that she has the chops to run. She’s not timid, that’s for sure. She shouldn’t be underestimated.

When speaking with reporters last year who questioned her about a White House run, Haley reiterated that “after November, we’ll figure it out. But you know what I’ve said — I’ve never lost a race. I’m not going to start now. If there’s place for me, we’ll put a hundred percent in, and we’ll finish it.”

We’ll see how far she gets. Does she make it past the early states in the primary? We’ll see how see does with fundraising and how long she can hang in there. She’d be a good vice-presidential candidate. Just a thought.