A Vote for Nikki Haley

            A year ago, I was in Georgia visiting my sister Louise and her husband Dick, a conservative like me who also takes a great interest in national politics. We happened to be talking about the future of the Republican Party when I asked Dick to write down the name of the one person he would choose to lead the party in the next presidential election should Donald Trump choose not to run. I did the same. And when we compared notes, we saw that we had written the same name: Nikki Haley. And that was months after she had stepped down from the national stage. It may well be her time to return to it.

            Nikki Haley served three terms in South Carolina’s legislature, followed by two very successful terms as the state’s governor. When Donald Trump was elected President, he chose her to be his first Ambassador to the United Nations. She represented our country in that post for two years and did a superb job as an advocate for Trump’s international policies, especially as a staunch defender of Israel. That’s a pretty good resume.

            She also has a very good personal profile. She is married and the mother of a boy and a girl—the ideal family, some would say. As the daughter of Indian immigrants, she says of herself that she is not white enough to be white nor black enough to be black, a sort of a claim of immunity to charges of racism from either side.

            So, how does a woman with such impeccable Republican credentials make her re-entry onto the national stage? She writes a book. Before it even hit the bookstores, “With All Due Respect” catapulted her onto the front pages of the national media whose pundits on the left lost no time in attacking her. Her crime? Loyalty to the president. It seems that when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Chief of Staff John Kelley had tried to recruit her in opposing some of the president’s policies, she refused.

            We don’t know how this soap opera will play out. Some are already saying Haley is positioning herself for a presidential run in 2024, or perhaps as a replacement for Mike Pence as Trump’s running mate in 2020. Whatever the outcome, my brother-in-law and I will be proven to have been incredibly prescient or in need of a new crystal ball.