Nikki Haley is still the strongest VP pick

The Express ^ | JUN 25, 2024 | Rich Lowry

[conservative98]

As far as we know, Nikki Haley isn’t on the short list, nor on the long list. There’s no indication that she’s being considered as Donald Trump’s VP pick, and Trump forcefully smacked down a report in Axios that the campaign was looking at her.

She’d still probably be the choice who, more than any other possible pick, would help Trump win in November.

By conventional rules, the former South Carolina governor getting the nod would be so obvious as to be completely unremarkable — she’s the runner-up in the nomination fight; she represents a different faction of the party; she provides demographic balance; she has executive and foreign policy experience; and she’s ready, to the extent this can be judged by resume and experience, to be president. Paint-by-numbers politics would make her a top contender, if not a shoo-in.

If, that is, she hadn’t criticized Trump in harsh and personal terms during her primary campaign. It’s one thing to criticize another candidate’s tax plan; and another to say he’s “diminished,” “unhinged,” “saying things that don’t make sense” and “not qualified” to be president. Any nominee would have a hard time swallowing those types of gibes, and Donald Trump is, shall we say, more sensitive to slights than most.

Trump gave as good as he got, turning what should have been a celebratory event the night he won the New Hampshire primary into an anti-Haley revival meeting.

All of this, though, is why her selection would be a shock and a potentially galvanizing moment in the campaign — it would show Trump to be willing to forgive and forget and put aside his personal feelings in the cause of saving the country from a second Biden term.

[Jimmy Valentine]

No chance. After her stupid stunt with the Confederate flags issue as Governor, she won’t get a single vote from below the Mason-Dixon line

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Solid point!