What if the first woman president is. . . a Republican?
That’s right. You read correctly. What a coup d'état it would be for Republicans if their party, now known as the (primarily) all boys frat club and bullier of women, somehow nominated a woman for president and she won the general election over a Democrat, the party traditionally seen as championing women. Good lord, historians hundreds of years from now will be confused!
As unlikely as that may seem right now, it is neither impossible nor implausible. Suffice it to say that there have been Republican thinking about it for a long time. In that time, the name of former South Carolina Governor and former (as of today) Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has inevitably come up.
As governor of South Carolina, Ambassador Haley proved to be intelligent, self-controlled, and politically savvy. A minority woman does not ascend to that office easily in South Carolina. Her opposers were legion and played every card possible against her, including the “slut” card. She was called a raghead, even though her parents are from India and are Sikh and even though she has long worshipped as a Christian. She was accused of tax fraud. Of being dumb. Of being insincere. You name it.
She survived those storms and many more, including navigating the swamps of race and gender issues in South Carolina, and South Carolina is know for its swamps, geographically and politically. Francis Marion, the Revolutionary War hero from South Carolina know as the Swamp Fox, navigated those swamps artfully and used them to his advantage. Nikki Haley has done the same. Ambassador Haley would campaign as far right as needed to win primaries. In governance, she remained conservative but placed herself more toward the center whenever possible. She could appeal to a lot of undecided voters, including undecided women, especially if she were presented as the new face of Republican party concerning women.
There are many examples of her political savvy. When a white male with racist motives murdered nine black South Carolinians, including a state senator, while they attended Bible study at their church, in a volatile situation she behaved admirably in what I believe was a sincere effort to address the issue. Sincere or not (and I believe she was), politics was on her mind. Right at the end of a presidential primary in which she backed someone else, she was quick to link racist rhetoric that permeated the Trump campaign as contributing to such crimes. A victim of racist rhetoric herself, she stated "I know what that rhetoric can do. I saw it happen.” She then landed a spot in the Trump Administration, not the most coveted, but a post nonetheless, that conveniently kept her from the limelight but also gave her needed foreign policy experience. In basketball, that’s like bricking a shot but getting your own rebound and then scoring. Two points!
When North Carolina passed its notorious bathroom gender law bill stopping transgender individuals from using public bathrooms representing their sexual identity, then-Governor Haley dismissed the need for such a law in South Carolina as unnecessary, irrelevant, and an example of intrusive government overreach. Swish! Three pointer! Nothing but net!
The Confederate flag issue was more touch and go. The Confederate Flag was removed from flying over the State Capitol in 2000 (where it had flown since 1962) to a monument on statehouse grounds, and then taken down completely in 2015. It was a swamp carpeted with land mines with sharpshooters who were descendants of Confederate soldiers lying in ambush. Even though removing it had garnered the necessary 2/3 majority from both state legislative houses, which means many Republicans voted for it, Governor Haley became the target of some Republicans, including some already supporting Trump in the primaries who vowed they would never forget. Originally in favor of allowing it to stay on statehouse grounds, as Governor of a state seeking business investment, and after giving a hearing to black South Carolinians about how the flag affected them, she later reflected that it should not have been there in the first place. No swish here. However, the fact is, many Republican politicians in South Carolina are much farther right than the majority of citizens and even many Republicans, especially younger Republicans, and many in the state were sympathetic to her support for removing the flag. She was on the foul line in a 1 and 1 situation and sunk 1 out of 2. Not bad.
So, what is next for Ambassador Haley?
Senator? If a Senate seat in South Carolina opens up that is a possibility. That depends on the plans of Senators Scott and Graham. Will Lindsey Graham get a cabinet post (Attorney General?) and Ambassador Haley be appointed in his stead? Possibly. Perhaps Senator Graham’s performance during the Kavanaugh confirmation set well with President Trump. In SC the governor appoints someone to fill a midterm vacancy in a senate seat, and the governor is the former lieutenant governor who served under Ambassador Haley, though until this upcoming 2018 election the governor and lieutenant governor ran separately. There would be some vocal opposition, and Governor McMaster is running for reelection, so it depends on where his support lies. However, can you imagine the conservative state of South Carolina having one black Senator, Tim Scott, and one minority woman Senator? That in itself is a pretty big coup.
Cabinet post? President Trump is full of surprises, so I would not eliminate that, but I’m not putting any money on it.
Is President Trump looking for a new VP to replace Mike Pence? That would be very, very risky with the Vice President’s connections, unless he is voluntarily moving elsewhere.
Whatever it is, it will be interesting to watch. Ambassador Haley has a way of landing on her feet. She is young and smart. Of course, politics is fickle and a lot can happen between now and 2020, 2024, or 2028. However, I don’t doubt that a lot of Republicans who will want to move the Republican Party away from Trumpian politics as quickly as possible would consider Ambassador Haley a good choice. Reactionary populism is a wave, and that wave eventually hits shore.