The Race For 2024

[ZiprHead]

Nikki Haley announces 2024 White House bid

Former South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley announced Tuesday in a video that she will run for president in 2024, becoming the first major rival to challenge former President Donald Trump for the GOP nomination.

“The Washington establishment has failed us over and over and over again. It’s time for a new generation of leadership to rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our border and strengthen our country, our pride and our purpose,” Haley, who is expected to deliver remarks Wednesday in Charleston at a campaign launch event, said in the video.

 

[ZiprHead]

Trump attacks Haley on Medicare, Social Security cuts

Former President Trump on Wednesday attacked new Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, his former United Nations ambassador, for her previous support of cutting Medicare and Social Security. In an email titled “The Real Nikki Haley” sent minutes after her official campaign launch event...

sports.yahoo.com

Former President Trump on Wednesday attacked new Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, his former United Nations ambassador, for her previous support of cutting Medicare and Social Security.

In an email titled “The Real Nikki Haley” sent minutes after her official campaign launch event, the Trump campaign noted Haley supported former Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan to eliminate Medicare and turn it into a voucher system.

 

[Patooka]

I don't know why Nikki Haley thinks she has a chance. She's asking for votes from the same crowd that loved saying Barrack Hussein Obama. Pretty soon we're going to see her described as Nimrata Haley nee Randhawa.

I guarantee it. Fuck, it's a 50/50 bet Ted Cruz will say it with zero self awareness.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Each of Trump's four suggested budgets over his 4 years demanded large cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Especially Medicare. I think it would be grand if the Democrats brought that up again, and again, and again. That would screw Trump royally. But would also be an invitation for the other GOP candidates to promise they would not support such cuts. Opening them up to demands to explain just how they planned to balance the budget as per Right Winger propaganda demands.

 

[Tigers!]

What is sad that now the rest of the world is going to be drowned in your next presidential campaign.
Thanks for nothing.

 

[Elixir]

What is sad that now the rest of the world is going to be drowned in your next presidential campaign.
Thanks for nothing.

Can’t you take out your anger by punching a kangaroo or something? I thought you guys were busy saving Sheilas from salties and wrestling with sharks, but now I find out you’re fretting about oligarchs fighting for control of a government on the other side of the planet … I hate disillusionment.

 

[bilby]

and wrestling with sharks

Nah.

 

[Tigers!]

What is sad that now the rest of the world is going to be drowned in your next presidential campaign.
Thanks for nothing.

Can’t you take out your anger by punching a kangaroo or something? I thought you guys were busy saving Sheilas from salties and wrestling with sharks, but now I find out you’re fretting about oligarchs fighting for control of a government on the other side of the planet … I hate disillusionment.

Kangaroos fight back, Koalas scratch, wombats charge, cassowaries kick out. Its a jungle out there in the Australian bush
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCcLMNcWZOc

 

[TV and credit cards]

Haley's bid could even benefit Trump given the first-past-the-poll primaries, Greven added: "If someone like her garners somewhere between 5% and 10% in the primaries, that can only help Trump because it dilutes the opposition.

"That's why, for example, he hasn't come up with a derogatory nickname for her yet," Greven said. "The moment Trump starts taking her seriously as a political rival, he's going to start calling her names."

 

[thebeave]

Nikki Haley announces 2024 White House bid

Former South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley announced Tuesday in a video that she will run for president in 2024, becoming the first major rival to challenge former President Donald Trump for the GOP nomination.

“The Washington establishment has failed us over and over and over again. It’s time for a new generation of leadership to rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our border and strengthen our country, our pride and our purpose,” Haley, who is expected to deliver remarks Wednesday in Charleston at a campaign launch event, said in the video.

She has no chance....way past her prime. Don Lemon nailed it.

Don Lemon absent from ‘CNN This Morning’ after sexist Nikki Haley rant enraged Poppy Harlow

But where was he when Hillary Clinton ran for POTUS? Methinks he might be a teeny bit biased (and just plain dumb).

 

[lpetrich]

DeSantis’s Challenge: When, and How, to Counterattack Trump - The New York Times

Donald Trump has been using insulting nicknames like "Meatball Ron" and "Shutdown Ron" for him.

But he has been laying low, mainly implying that Trump is a loser.

So far, Mr. DeSantis has countered Mr. Trump’s attacks with occasional needling aimed at the former president’s anxiety about being labeled a loser. While Republicans have suffered through three disappointing election cycles with Mr. Trump as the face of the party, Mr. DeSantis won re-election resoundingly in November.

“Go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters days after the midterm elections, when he was asked about Mr. Trump’s criticism.

 

[lpetrich]

Nikki Haley presidential run would sink DeSantis and hand Trump victory – poll | US elections 2024 | The Guardian - Yahoo News/YouGov survey finds that an additional Republican candidate would split the vote in former president’s favor"

Poll: DeSantis leads Trump for 2024 GOP nod — but not if Haley and others split the vote - "The Florida governor edges out Trump and performs better against Biden in head-to-head matchups."

That's the problem with first-past-the-post voting (plurality voting). Candidates with similar voter appeal can split the vote between them, keeping their side from winning.  Vote splitting results in the spoiler effect.


On the Democratic side, Marianne Williamson eyeing another run for president

 

[lpetrich]

Opinion | Nikki Haley Threw It All Away - The New York Times

When Donald Trump ran in the 2016 Republican primary, Ms. Haley stood next to Senator Marco Rubio, the candidate she had endorsed, and eviscerated Mr. Trump as a racist the party must reject: “I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the K.K.K. That is not a part of our party. That is not who we want as president.” She was courageous, fighting on principle, a warrior who would never back down. Until she did.

The politician who saw herself as a role model for women and immigrants transformed herself into everything she claimed to oppose: By 2021, Ms. Haley was openly embracing her inner MAGA with comments like, “Thank goodness for Donald Trump or we never would have gotten Kamala Harris to the border.” In one sentence, she managed to attack women and immigrants while praising the man she had vowed never to stop fighting. She had gone from saying “I have to tell you, Donald Trump is everything I taught my children not to do in kindergarten” to “I don’t want us to go back to the days before Trump.”

Just like other Republican Trump critics, like "Lyin' Ted" Cruz saying that Trump is a pathological liar to being on his side.

Her defining action as governor was signing legislation removing the Confederate flag from the State Capitol.

...
Then came Donald “You had some very fine people on both sides” Trump, and by 2019 Ms. Haley was defending the Confederate flag. In an interview that December, Ms. Haley told the conservative radio host Glenn Beck that the Charleston church shooter had “hijacked” the Confederate flag and that “people saw it as service, sacrifice and heritage.”

...
It didn’t have to be this way. No one forced Ms. Haley to accept Mr. Trump after he bragged about assaulting women in the “Access Hollywood” tape. No one forced her to defend the Confederate flag. No one forced her to assert Mr. Trump had “lost any sort of political viability” not long after the Capitol riot, then reverse herself, saying she “would not run if President Trump ran,” then prepare to challenge Mr. Trump for the nomination. There is nothing new or novel about an ambitious politician engaging in transactional politics, but that’s a rare trifecta of flip-flop-flip.

She could have been like AOC, when asked several times whether she would support Joe Biden, she said each time that she would support whoever is the nominee. She could have said that the only reason that she is supporting Trump is because she wants a Republican in the White House. But she is much more enthusiastic than that.

The female star of the current Republican Party isn’t the daughter of immigrants taking down the Confederate flag. It’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, who sells “Proud Christian Nationalist” T-shirts while becoming arguably the second-most-powerful member of the House in little more than one two-year term. If Mr. Trump wins the Republican nomination (and I think he will), he may well choose the election-denying loser Kari Lake as his running mate, not the woman who twice won governor’s races the old-fashioned way: with the most votes once the ballots were counted.

 

[lpetrich]

Five times GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley tried to have it both ways - her relationship with Donald Trump, the Confederate Flag, her “friendship” with Trump, Trump and #MeToo, Trump and Jan. 6

About that last one,

Days after the insurrection, Haley was critical of Trump’s role in the riots. “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him,” she told Politico. “And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

But less than two weeks later, Haley was on Fox News defending Trump’s legacy. “We should not want to go back to the Republican Party before Trump,” she said. She admitted his actions on Jan. 6 were “not his finest,” and rejected the idea Trump should be impeached. “They beat him up before he got into office. They’re beating him up after he leaves office. I mean at some point, I mean, give the man a break. I mean, move on.”

 

[lpetrich]

The ‘CEO of Anti-Woke Inc.’ Has His Eye on the Presidency - POLITICO - "Vivek Ramaswamy leaves the boardroom for a barn in Iowa to test out his businessman-turned-culture-warrior brand on rural conservative voters."

Ramaswamy has a theory for how this will all go. He wants to pull off what Donald Trump did in 2016: enter the race with an entrepreneurial spirit, unorthodox ideas, and few expectations, and end up developing a major following that will carry him to the presidency — even if it seems like a long shot at the moment.

But making a fortune in biotech investing is different than glad-handing with Iowa small business owners or withstanding a barrage of attacks from Trump.

 

[lpetrich]

Senior Democrats’ Private Take on Biden: He’s Too Old - POLITICO

High-level Democrats are rallying to President Biden’s reelection, not because they think it’s in the best interest of the country to have an 82-year-old start a second term but because they fear the potential alternative: the nomination of Kamala Harris and election of Donald Trump.

Not that many of them will say it publicly, at least not that directly.

“Nobody wants to be the one to do something that would undermine the chances of a Democratic victory in 2024,” Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) explained to me. “Yet in quiet rooms the conversation is just the opposite — we could be at a higher risk if this path is cleared.”

...
Republican officials were reluctant to criticize Donald Trump when he launched his first re-election effort, even though party elites barely tolerated him, because their voters overwhelmingly favored the former president. Democrats today reflect the mirror image: polls indicate many of their voters want a new nominee but few lawmakers say as much because it could create awkwardness with their fellow leaders, who don’t want to speak out.

Phillips reminded me that he criticized Republican lawmakers who would say very different things about Trump when the tape recorders were off and the beer tap was on.

“Yes, the circumstances are different, and the presidents are very different, but it’s your responsibility when you represent constituents to speak your truth and not hide it,” he said of his Democratic colleagues.

 

[lpetrich]

New Hampshire Democrats to Biden: Changing primary calendar will ‘wreak havoc’ on us | The Hill
By not having as much campaign effort in that state.

2024 Democratic primary calendar passes in critical party vote : NPR

Under the adopted proposal, which President Biden himself advocated for in a letter to the RBC in December, the 2024 presidential calendar will have South Carolina in the plum first position on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada jointly sharing the no. 2 slot on Feb. 6, then Georgia on Feb. 13 and Michigan on Feb. 27.

It's a calendar that in many ways rewards states that helped propel Biden to the White House in 2020, including South Carolina, which drastically shifted Biden's presidential fortunes.

Changes to the 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar - Ballotpedia
Has a chart that shows old and new primary dates.

 

[lpetrich]

Inside Trump '25: A radical plan for Trump’s second term

Former President Trump’s top allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re-elected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his "America First” ideology, people involved in the discussions tell Axios.

The impact could go well beyond typical conservative targets such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service. Trump allies are working on plans that would potentially strip layers at the Justice Department — including the FBI, and reaching into national security, intelligence, the State Department and the Pentagon, sources close to the former president say.

During his presidency, Trump often complained about what he called “the deep state.”

Trump's plan for a 2nd term reportedly includes firing squads, hangings, and group executions

As Donald Trump's second re-election bid begins to pick up steam in the new year, details about the former president's plans for his return to the White House have begun to emerge — including a new report from Rolling Stone, which alleges Trump has begun polling his advisers on whether he should bring back firing squads, hangings, and even the guillotine should he win in 2024.

According to two sources, the former president has even begun exploring the possibility of group executions, with a third person claiming Trump has expressed interest in a government ad campaign to highlight the administration's lethality and, per Rolling Stone's source, "help put the fear of God into violent criminals." A Trump campaign spokesperson denied the former president had plans for an execution ad campaign in a statement to Rolling Stone.

Oliver Willis on Twitter: "this is the kind of fascist shit republican primary voters love, not nikki haley bragging about cutting tax rates" / Twitter

 

[lpetrich]

Tucker Carlson told his producer Trump is 'the undisputed world champion' of destroying things and could ruin Fox News if it didn't back his election lies

Two days after Election Day 2020, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson texted his producer warning that Fox News' decision to call the state of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night could spell doom for the network.

...
We worked really hard to build what we have," Carlson texted his producer, Alex Pfeiffer, on November 5, 2020, according to the filing. Referring to colleagues who projected the results, Carlson texted: "Those fuckers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me."

Carlson added that he had spoken with fellow prime-time commentators Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity minutes earlier and that they were "highly upset."

"At this point we're getting hurt no matter what," he wrote, according to the filing.

Pfeiffer replied that "many on 'our side' are being reckless demagogues right now."

"Of course they are," Carlson wrote. "We're not going to follow them."

Carlson went on to say that Trump was good at "destroying things. He's the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong."

At another point the same day, Carlson texted that "we've got to be incredibly careful right now. We could get hurt." It's unclear who the recipient of the message was.

Like making Fox News seem like traitors to the Trumpie cause?

 

[lpetrich]

Ann Coulter tells Nikki Haley to ‘go back to your own country’ in racist rant against new GOP presidential candidate

In an appearance on the "The Mark Simone Show" podcast this week, Coulter made several xenophobic comments about Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who was born in the U.S. to Indian immigrant parents. "Why don't you go back to your own country?" Coulter said.

Coulter, known for her racist and anti-immigrant stances, attacked India, as well.

"Her candidacy did remind me that I need to immigrate to India so I can demand they start taking down parts of their history," she said. "What's with the worshipping of the cows? They're all starving over there. Did you know they have a rat temple, where they worship rats?"

...
Coulter also called Haley a "bimbo" and a "preposterous creature," criticizing her for having advocated removing the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse in the wake of the 2015 shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

"This is my country, lady," she said. "I'm not an American Indian, and I don't like them taking down all the monuments."

I thought that right-wingers prided themselves on how inclusive they are.