President Nikki Haley?

The Chicago Tribune ^ | April 30, 2016 | Howard Gutman

[conservativefreak]

The United States may soon have its first female president. And it may not be Hillary Clinton.

Over the past few weeks, the best answer to the question of who will emerge as the Republican presidential nominee — businessman Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, some other failed 2016 contender or even House Speaker Paul D. Ryan — has become "none of the above." In each instance, the case for why any one of these candidates probably won't be picked has gotten much stronger than the one for why each of the individual candidates would.

Despite Trump's big victories this week, he's not the "presumptive nominee" he claims to be. He faces much tougher challenges in Indiana and California, where poor showings would likely leave him short of the 1,237 delegates needed to end the upcoming Republican convention chaos with a victory in the first round of voting. Despised and feared by the Republican establishment, Trump almost certainly will do worse with each passing round. A stone's throw is probably as close as he'll ever get to the nomination.

Cruz is on track to succeed as the spoiler of the Trump campaign. But with Trump romping on the East Coast, Cruz will likely finish hundreds of delegates and millions of votes behind. That's too far back. The possibility of allowing a big loser to leapfrog over a clear front-runner has not polled well among the party rank and file. It's a good bet it will flop at the convention, too.

If it could, the Republican establishment would settle for finding its way to Kasich, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, new Cruz running mate Carly Fiorina or another one of the 2016 also-rans. ...

[stephenjohnbanker]

LOL!

[ladyjane]

A southern governor who hates the south, its history and its traditions. She needs to take her crap back to India.

[mkjessup]

I’ll buy her a Slurpee if it’ll motivate her.