On Sunday, Nikki Haley took to the airwaves to promote her big presidential campaign endorsement from Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire. In fact, Sununu appeared alongside Haley for an interview with ABC "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Haley and Sununu wanted to talk about issues like … how they would rather not criticize Donald Trump directly or speak too much about the guy most Americans think is a criminal. In fact, Haley wishes the media would stop talking about the Republican front-runner for president entirely. This exchange between Karl and Haley says it all:
Jonathan Karl: [Trump’s] running on retribution. He wants to go out and he talks about annihilating his enemies and using the criminal justice system to do so. What do you think of that?”
Nikki Haley: You guys are exhausting. You're exhausting in your obsession with him. The thing is, the normal people aren't obsessed with Trump like you guys are. The normal people care about the fact that they can't afford things. They feel like their freedoms are being taken away. They think government’s too big. I know y’all want to talk about every single word he says and every single tweet he does.”
Haley’s response is the same cowardly schtick Republicans have been doing in regards to Trump for more than six years: Don’t answer it, then pivot to some form of killing the media messenger.
As the primary season moves forward, more Republican voters become familiar with people like Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Probably most telling is that as this happened, Trump’s polling lead has steadily increased. One could say that as more GOP voters see and hear Haley, they become decidedly more obsessed with Donald Trump. Trump is more than 50 points ahead of Haley and DeSantis in Iowa!
In Haley’s home state of South Carolina, where she was a political figure for no less than 12 years, including the governor of the state for six of those years, Haley is down just shy of 30 points to Trump. Right now, Haley’s best shot with the “normal people” of her party is in New Hampshire, where she sits at around 20% and Trump is only 23 points ahead.
A more honest question for Haley to ponder is why the media seems disproportionately obsessed with both her and DeSantis’ losing campaigns.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
