Oh, Nikki... Redux

A Spiral in NH

I’ve been on the phone to NH Republican operative types and it’s grim.

Trump is poised to decisively win the New Hampshire primary and put the nomination away.

Nikki Haley’s once promising NH “surge” is deflating like a discarded parade balloon.

Sadly, just weeks ago she had a shot. NH’s hybrid primary — full of Independents and even a bushel or two of rogue Democrats — was warming to her. Republicans ready to move beyond Trump saw an interesting, modern conservative. Independents ready to rebuke Trump had found a vessel. Polls showed her moving up, within striking distance of a perfect New Hampshire style upset, one that would open up the race and give Nikki a fighting change to surge into her home state of South Carolina and blow the race wide open.

Then came a deadly three punch combination: Slavery, Iowa, Debate Ducking.

The tragic part is two of the three devastating punches were thrown by Haley at herself. The Slavery mess, which I wrote about in an earlier post, revealed Nikki’s biggest flaw; her fear of offended any base or MAGA voter. She, in the words of an old Russian proverb I’m fond of, keeps “trying to wash the bear without getting his fur wet.” Her on again, off again criticism of Donald Trump has been a dizzying Charleston dance of incomprehensible footwork, carefully criticizing him one moment and lavishly praising him another. It has only fed perceptions of her as a pliable politician willing to say anything to fearfully inch ahead.

The deadly punch was the Iowa haymaker delivered Monday night by Trump; assisted by ol’ DeSantis Dundee whose squawking debate insults shook her confidence from ringside.

And now, with Great Debate Error Nikki has landed a savage uppercut to herself yet again. And she’s headed straight to the hard canvas: a round two knockout.

New Hampshire political culture lesson number one is simple. In the great Boston manner, the Granite State enjoys a little drama in its politics. It craves a moment, especially one with high stakes. The more that moment is about a little comeuppance, the better. There is truth to the old saw that the best final week campaign slogan in New Hampshire is “Screw Iowa.”

So when Nikki shot down any chance of a high stakes final, means everything, high stakes TV debate in NH, she cheated NH out of what it values most; central importance.

Oh, I know the staff arguments… ”why show up for a debate without Trump and where DeSantis can just yell insults at us for an hour and risk blowing our N.H. lead just like the last debate hurt us so much in Iowa.”

Defense, my dear, is the coward’s art of losing slowly.

Primary politics, especially in the final weeks, is not static but very dynamic. That means, after Iowa, Haley had no more NH lead to protect!

Under the cruel realities of the media expectations game, finishing (a close) third in Iowa was a hammer blow. Her shine tarnished, her weaknesses as a candidate thrust back in the spotlight. “From the penthouse to the outhouse” as the Wall Street sharks like to say. One bad freezing night in Iowa and Nikki Haley is now, alas, damaged goods.

So, then Nikki’s only move was to stage a Hollywood comeback in N.H. TV Debate? Hell, demand three debates! Look DeSantis in the eye and tell him that America and the GOP should no longer suffer just because he could never get a date in High School!

Call Trump an old wimp because he’s afraid to show up right her and debate, a girl! “So I’m going to debate tonight and I’m tell you about the future of the Republican Party. And going to take on Joe Biden, because I like debating, and instead of a nail biter in November, I’m going to give you a landslide. We’re going to win the House, win the Senate, appoint the next court and win the future over the left. And tonight, I’m going out to Wontons in Wakefield and Donald, I think I’m going to order Orange Chicken!”

I exaggerate but only a little. You get the idea.

Instead, the chose the opposite path. Play it safe. Again, the Cuttlefish Candidate.

New Hampshire loves a scrappy underdog and a debate like that would tee NH up to do what the Granite State voters love to do most. Cut an arrogant front-runner down to size. Ask Barrack Obama. Ask George W. Bush. Ask LBJ. New Hampshire is not the Granite State, it is the Punisher state. But the good voters there need a story, a first and second act to build up to its climax. Life, imitates art.

When George W. Bush avoided NH’s first TV debate in October of 1999, because his campaign saw no advantage in slumming around Durham NH with what they saw as the cheesy undercard crew of Alan Keyes, Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, Orrin Hatch and… John McCain. Skipping that first debate, was an insult to NH (in the narrative) and it created a hairline crack in Bush’s connection to New Hampshire that would grow from a large fracture into a clean break. Symbolism is vital in New Hampshire presidential primaries.

Now, reports indicate that Haley is abandoning the “campaign in every Moose Hall and Diner, shake every hand, take every question” schtick that is another key narrative feature of Granite state political myth making. Some smart ass in the analytics department at Nikki Inc probably says hustling around like that is an inefficient use of her time. And a dopey campaign flack is suggesting that “taking town hall questions risks another Slavery Moment!” In the math, maybe. For the narrative? Never

.Einstein once called compound interest “the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it." Compounding works in politics too. When you feed the narrative in the right place at the right moment in the right way, you can soar. But if you undercut the power of the narrative, it will compound against you and create a spiral to defeat.

Nikki Haley is learning that lesson in the hardest possible way. It could have worked. And I’m pissed. She was a supremely mediocre champion, but she was all we had.