Nikki Haley takes the plunge — will Ron DeSantis?
Hugo Gurdon
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Nikki Haley has done everyone a favor by announcing she is running for president.
This is partly because she didn’t edge crabwise into the race by first setting up an “exploratory committee.” That path bespeaks a candidate uncertain of her own suitability. Dipping a toe into the water rather than taking the plunge is a bad look for someone claiming to be the best chief executive for the world’s preeminent nation and global leader. Haley bravely and straightforwardly took the plunge; she is in.
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It will be a blessing if this prompts Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who is also from the strategically helpful primary state of South Carolina, to dispense with tiresome half-in-half-out timidity and just go for it when, as imminently expected, he breaks cover and emerges into the open.
Haley’s launch means Republicans have an official and highly plausible rival to former President Donald Trump. The party desperately needs this. It is held against Haley that she worked for Trump (as United Nations ambassador) and previously said she wouldn’t challenge him. Trump quickly drew attention to the awkward flip-flop. But Haley’s U.N. stint is a strength, as is her successful governorship of state. Her 180-degree about-face on battling him will, however, be raised repeatedly and will require deft explanation again and again.
Both her early entry into the race and Trump’s are, however, signs of weakness. Trump’s reelection launch was a hollow act of bravado. He made it immediately after being exposed as a dead weight on the GOP by the defeat of his favored midterm candidates. He urgently wanted to end talk about his weakness and so he did something dramatic to give the impression that he was not yesterday’s man, not a spent force. He has some poll strength but not what he should have after being the only candidate for two months.
Haley is getting in now because although she is admirable, accomplished, and poised, there is no popular demand, no clamor for her candidacy. Despite long positioning herself for this bid, no one is asking her to run. She desperately needs to attract attention and enthusiasm. She is presenting herself attractively as neither black nor white and as the harbinger of a new generation of American leadership. Her campaign launch video evokes her upbringing on the wrong side of the tracks, but nothing in years of careful priming suggests her train has the locomotive force to reach its intended destination. That is why former national security adviser John Bolton quickly opined that she is really running for vice president.
As dissimilar as Haley is from Trump, and as both are from Scott, they all seem doomed, as do other contenders, to be secondary candidates up to and perhaps beyond the expected announcement of Gov. Ron DeSantis when the Florida legislative session ends in May. He is the only Republican who seems to have the oomph to defeat Trump. So, the primary campaign for the Republican nomination will not seem genuinely to have begun until he enters it.
Unlike Haley or Scott, indeed unlike all other possible contenders readying a White House bid, such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, DeSantis draws genuine enthusiasm rather than just respect. There is popular demand for his candidacy. Republicans want him to run. They see him as capable of separating the good from the bad of Trump’s one term, keeping the former and not carrying the ugly load of the latter. Until DeSantis is in on the battlefield, the primary will seem like a phony war.
Maybe, however, he will stay out. Looking at the landscape, you can see why he might sidestep a 2024 confrontation with Trump and wait another four years. After all, presidential incumbents have advantages over challengers, and it is easy to imagine Trump beating his GOP rivals with a shaky plurality and then losing to President Joe Biden again. DeSantis would be only 50 years old in 2028 and could run for a vacant presidency with both Biden and Trump out of the picture.
But fortune does not favor the timid. DeSantis has a problem and it is the exact opposite of the one faced by all his rivals. It is the pressure of popularity. There is conservative demand for his leadership. If he wimps out after burnishing his reputation as a fighter so brightly, it could tarnish him permanently.
Haley is not just ambitious but also daring in her decision to get into the race. It may not be enough. But if DeSantis seems too calculating and fails to take his opportunity now when the time seems right, there is a good chance that it won’t come again. Who dares wins.