![Nikki Haley at the UN [Image via State Department/Flickr]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/12/24/660x290/b_502x220x82/nikki-haley-at-the-un-image-courtesy-state-department-flickr_1749499.jpg "Nikki Haley at the UN [Image via State Department/Flickr]")
2017 has been a remarkable political year in many ways, as it must be with Donald Trump in the White House. One reason for this fact has been the emergence of Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and current UN ambassador, as a rising Republican superstar. In fact a diverse number of people ranging from Professor Jonathon Adelman writing in the Huffington Post to Fox News analyst and author Ralph Peters touting her as the next president of the United States. The idea, admittedly, is very beguiling.
Haley’s qualifications
Haley checks a number of boxes, both experience-wise and in her identity.
She was a wildly successful governor of South Carolina, having been elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010. Haley presided over economic growth and job creation in the midst of the Obama malaise economy. She also handled the Confederate flag controversy that arose in the wake of Dylann Roof’s massacre of eight African American parishioners with uncommon deftness.
Haley has shown as UN Ambassador, creating comparisons to Jean Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. She was particularly forceful handling the move of the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem kerfuffle. Haley also arranged for a massive $285 million cut in the United Nation’s bloated budget. Haley is also, obviously, a woman and born to Sikh parents, though she converted to Roman Catholicism.
A 2024 scenario
It may be foolish in the extreme to predict electoral politics three years hence not to mention seven. However, since we imagine Nikki Haley as the first Female President, we need to give it a try.
For this scenario, we assume that Donald Trump was reelected in 2020 comfortably, having polished off whichever far-left candidate, say, Bernie Sanders, which the Democrats send against him.
The economy is roaring along nicely. No foreign policy disasters have blighted the political landscape. Haley may still be at the UN, she may have been raised to the secretary of state, or she may be in the private sector.
First, Haley is going to be faced with a formidable slate of Republican candidates in the primaries. They will not only include 2016 also-rans such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas and Sen.
Marco Rubio, R-Florida but a number of other rising stars who have become more famous by then. Vice President Mike Pence will certainly dominate if he chooses to run.
Presuming that Haley gets the nomination, she will face a firestorm in the general election. Democrats hate two types of people more than anyone in the world, Republican women, and ethnic Republicans, and Haley is both kinds. The fury she will face will be beyond measure. She got a taste of that treatment in her first run for governor, but if she doubts what is in store for her, she could ask Sarah Palin and her fellow South Carolinian, Sen. Tim Scott.
Still, if Nikki Haley gets elected, she will be the first female president of the United States, a role that many thought was reserved for Hillary Clinton. The idea of such an occurrence is almost too delicious for words.
