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Nikki Haley on Short List for Veep?

Nikki Haley on Short List for Veep?

Demonstrating leadership . . .

South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s political capital is rising. Her leadership in the wake of the shooting in Charleston has some wondering if she’s now a contender for vice president on the GOP’s 2016 ticket.

Joseph Weber of FOX News:

Haley’s Charleston response, Confederate flag stand spark VP talk

South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley’s response to the Charleston massacre, highlighted by her call to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds, has thrust her back into the national spotlight and re-ignited talk about what role she might play in the 2016 race.

Not only is Haley poised to be a powerful surrogate, there’s already chatter that she could make a solid Republican vice presidential candidate.

“She’d be on anybody’s list,” Mike Huckabee, one 14 GOP presidential candidates and a former Arkansas governor, told Fox News on Tuesday. “She’s done a terrific job in South Carolina.”

Haley has been a high-profile Republican since she won the governorship as part of the 2010 Tea Party wave.

But her call to remove the Confederate battle flag after a white male fatally shot nine black people June 17 inside an historic African-American church in Charleston, S.C., has Republican presidential candidates, political observers and others suggesting her leadership in the aftermath shows she could be a pivotal player in the presidential race.

Here’s the speech Haley recently gave regarding the removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s capitol:

Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner noted the power of Haley’s speech and what it represented:

A great moment for Nikki Haley and America

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley displayed strong leadership on Monday by calling on the legislature to vote to take down the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the state capitol.

The flag is an ugly symbol of treason, slavery, violence and racism, yet under the guise of “heritage” it has maintained a prominent position in a public space in a state in which 1.3 million residents, or about 30 percent of the population, is black.

The move, which I argued for last week (and also on a visit to the capitol back in 2008), was long overdue. It won’t bring back any of the victims of the Charleston church shooting. Nor will it end racism in this country. But it is, nonetheless, a seminal moment in America for race relations.

Featured image via YouTube.

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Comments

While Gov Haley seems to be a good person, given her twisting around these past few weeks, she might wind up running for VP under Hillary of maybe Slow Joe, or perhaps even Bernie! You know, kinda of like a a bipartisan, unity, ticket, so called!

Still, can’t see her becoming a VP candidate for any of the GOP’ers running right now!

The Civil War memorial on the statehouse grounds should be amended, by adding the story of this murder, and the responses of the families at the bail hearing.

    Captain Keogh in reply to Valerie. | July 5, 2015 at 8:13 pm

    What Dylann Roof did had nothing to do with the Civil War. He was just a nobody, drop out, future-less, punk wannabe, tough guy. A lot of hate has been done under the flag of Islam and even the Cross of Christ – do we want to ban them too?

    Milhouse in reply to Valerie. | July 6, 2015 at 7:49 am

    Why? This murder has no connection with the civil war. Do you also want to add every crime that has ever happened in South Carolina?!

    Sammy Finkelman in reply to Valerie. | July 9, 2015 at 5:55 pm

    That needs a separate memorial, and there’s a reason to put it near the state capitol, (it was a pretty horrendous crime, and it involved killing a State Senator well-liked among his colleagues) but it shouldn’t be near the other one.

    That had really nothing to do with it, except that the Confederate flag, among other symbols, was appropriated as a symbol of white supremacy.

Niki has caved to OUTSIDE special interest groups that are trying to distract us from the reality that THEY have been widening the division between ethnic groups. It’s so much easier to control a large population when you have it split up in smaller groups that can be played off against each other.

    bushrat in reply to genes. | July 6, 2015 at 7:54 am

    Agreed! She has shown herself to have the “spine” of a Rino. Leadership? On the issue of the confederate flag, she caved like a mud slide on a stormy day! Of course, she might make a good VP for candidates such as Rubio, Bush, Christie, etc.

Captain Keogh | July 5, 2015 at 7:17 pm

I much prefer her to clowns such as Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Rick Santorum, George Pataki, Chris Christie and yes Carly Firoina.

She folded like a cheap suit. So as not to offend cheap suits, a cheap suit at least folds under pressure. Haley had none.

She seems more like an opportunist than a ‘leader.’

Cowering and appeasing cultural terrorists is not leadership, unless one uses the definition of leadership evidenced in the GOP establishment like McConnel and Bohner. There was absolutely nothing magnanimous or courageous about Haley’s statement.

The people who keep trying to tie the Confederate flag which flies over a Confederate memorial to the mass murder at the AME church are either abysmally ignorant or maliciously subversive. Their misunderstanding should be politely corrected and their demands for further consideration ignored. Tolerance is a two way proposition.

A couple of weeks ago I came across a website which presented some family history stories of prominent persons. They all read as though they had been written by the person themselves or someone close to them. Among the bios was one of Nikki Haley. Emphasis about her “struggles” growing up in a racist Southern area of SC appeared more than once in the article. Again, I don’t know if it was written by Ms. Haley or a family member but I found the tone of victim hood to be in very poor taste and frankly offensive.

BTW, also posted on that site was a bio/family history of Condi Rice. Not a hint of “poor little non-white me”, not a whiff of reference to race. It was a loving celebration of her parents and grandparents emphasizing their character and achievements. Character and achievement in Condi Rice obviously ran in her family. Obviously not so much in Nikki Haley.

Juba Doobai! | July 5, 2015 at 10:45 pm

Nikki Haley is an opportunist of the first water. Sarah Palin got Haley the governorship; Haley is no longer in touch with Palin and has not been since she got the office. Leadership? Haley has yet to show it. Pandering? She’s shown a lot of that, just as she has shown a lot of ingratitude.

    Estragon in reply to Juba Doobai!. | July 6, 2015 at 1:04 am

    Only a lunatic fringe nut like yourself believes that. Palin did endorse Haley in a big Republican primary field before her first election to Governor. It helped, but it was hardly the only thing. Haley was the protege of Mark Sanford and stood for the same reform movement; the rest of the field were part of the good old boy network in the state GOP which has consistently thwarted reform for nearly 20 years now.

      Captain Keogh in reply to Estragon. | July 6, 2015 at 10:10 am

      The whole myth of “Sarah Palin the Kingmaker” has got to be debunked. Thankfully after the whole incoherent C-PAC speech few people pay attention to her any more. Just because Palin supported you does not mean that you owe your election to her. Nikki Haley is what a Republican has always been.

      Captain Keogh in reply to Estragon. | July 6, 2015 at 10:16 am

      The SC GOP Leadership has always been pretty sleazy, the only thing worse is the Democratic Leadership. Remember that “good ole boy” who claimed he slept with her?

      Juba Doobai! in reply to Estragon. | July 6, 2015 at 9:29 pm

      Do yourself a favor, bugger off!

      What’s your beef with giving credit where it is obviously due? Haley was losing the race until Palin helped her out. The news of her alleged affair hit the news, and Sarah Palin assured SC voters that Haley was worth the gamble.

      Like I said you biased little twerp, bugger off!

        Captain Keogh in reply to Juba Doobai!. | July 7, 2015 at 10:40 am

        Buggering is something that you would be more familiar with Tutti frutti.
        St. Sarah of Wasilla is the greatest American of all time with the possible exception of Dr. Ben Carson.

          cbenoistd in reply to Captain Keogh. | July 9, 2015 at 12:30 pm

          When allegations [of an affair] from Folks first surfaced, Haley remembers having Palin in her corner after just one phone call – a contrast to the way another supporter, Romney, had handled the news.
          “Sarah goes with her gut, and I love her for that,” she writes. “Mitt’s team [said] they were going to have a ‘Nikki Haley meeting’ the next morning to decide what to do next.”

          Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74171_Page3.html#ixzz3fPd2dscB

          Juba Doobai: Gov. Haley doesn’t have to be in touch with Mrs. Palin. She hasn’t turned on her or thrown her under the bus. That’s all one can ask for.

No, not leadership, but affirmative action.
I will happily vote for two white guys knowing that they got where they got because of their hard work and talent, not skin-color or private parts promotion.

As a longtime Haley supporter, I was disappointed by her pandering – along with our Senators – to the mob. But it wasn’t exactly “caving” since none of them had any power to do anything with the flag.

The compromise over a decade ago which led to its placement on the monument instead of over the state house (where Fritz Hollings placed it when he was Governor) stipulated only the state legislature has the authority to change the deal. No one else, period. And there it remains.

Incidentally, the late Rev. Pinckney, victim of the recent atrocity, voted for the compromise.

– –

Haley may have a future nationally, but she is far from ready to be VP. SC Governors are not very powerful. She fought for conservative reforms like her mentor and predecessor, Sanford, but with no more success due to the good old boy network which includes most legislative Republican leaders.

She pivoted from the Sanford model to more of a Carroll Campbell approach of attracting business investment in the state, with success. Good thinking on her feet, but still lacking in experience.

I lost quite a bit of respect for her over this flag thing. Even if moving the flag from the war memorial is a good thing, and she always wanted to do it, why now? Make that proposal some other time, when it can be debated on its merits. By pushing it now she cemented the blood libel that blames it for the church murders.

I also see no reason to move the flag from its current location. A war memorial is a museum. And the museum it would be moved to would also be government property.

MarlaHughes | July 6, 2015 at 2:06 pm

I love what she had to say and agree with it. That particular flag in that particular position is only there due to the racism of the South Carolina good ole boys network that was in power since the North gave up trying to reconstruct it. She is a symbol of that network’s recent failure and so its just and fitting that she be the one driving it’s removal.
That history’s bloody hands belong entirely to the Democrats who have ran the state, including but not limited to Fritz Hollings, who put that flag up there in rebellion over having to let black children sit in white children’s classrooms. It was moved to the memorial as the only compromise possible with the good old boy network running the state in the 00’s.
I applauded when Nikki Haley was elected due to it being a signal that finally, after hundreds of years, the racists and crooks who ran the state were at least on their way out even if she had to do a little dodging a weaving to keep from being a standing target.
I’d vote for her in a heartbeat.

I’ve been impressed with her UNTIL the flag move.

Caving to mob pressure in the heat of the moment in knee jerk fashion is the opposite of leadership.

Let’s not rewrite history because we don’t like to face what we were supposed to learn from it.

Southerners need to take that flag back from the racists… its stands for so much more.

When the usual race-agitators saw that SC wasn’t going to blow up like Ferguson they changed their target and set their sights on the flag because they needed something on which to center their campaign. By moving to remove the flag, Haley took away their argument. Had she not done that there would have been months of rallies, protests, speeches, articles and debate on the nightly news show. All of them targeting those racist Republicans. By taking away their talking point she did the GOP a favor.