Such moments demonstrate
the strengths of Haley’s superficially traditional campaign. With a little
extra shove against the weight of disbelief, her events allow one to imagine
that the past eight years have been free of Trump’s reality-warping presence.
She doesn’t mine Fox for easy outrage material, and I don’t think I’ve heard
her say “woke” once. She speaks passionately but without venom; it’s
not that she doesn’t call for bloodshed; she just directs her fire against
targets invoked by politicians of all stripes (look out Hamas, terrorists, and
cartel members). This passive-voice violence may not be as satisfying as Trump
going full Nazi (immigrants “poisoning the blood of our nation” and
all); 50 percent of Iowa Republicans say they like Trump more
now! But does liking him translate to
believing he can win?
Every aspect of Haley’s
campaign sets her apart from Trump and DeSantis. Suppose you didn’t listen to
what her actual policies were. You might come away believing that she was set
to personally repair every behavioral norm broken over Trump’s fleshy thigh
during the past eight years. This is what she wants event attendees to hear,
and it is what the people I talked to heard. The Iowans focused on the general
are turning out for Haley, which should terrify us all.
Watching her work the
rooms during the day I spent with her in Iowa, I understood how her dark-horse
run for governor slingshotted her from back-bench legislator to “face of
the New South.” At the time, you may recall, the Republican Party was rebranding
as a haven for “mama grizzlies,” Haley was shoe-horned in among more
flashy personalities such as Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell. Her style was
always too soft-spoken to fit comfortably into the Tea Party patois of the
time. But unlike most of that crowd, she never faded from view. It’sa testament
to her skills as an administrator and her devotion to the conservative policy
that that she stayed in front ranks of
the party even as Palin and O’Donnell have shuffled off into shabby notoriety.