Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley announces she is suspending her campaign during a news conference in Charleston, S.C., on March 6.Chris Carlson/The Associated Press
Nikki Haley no longer is running for president. Yet the battle between Ms. Haley and Donald Trump goes on.
Bloodied but not bowed, the former South Carolina governor did not bow to American political custom to employ a combination of the gracious and the grudging, to acknowledge defeat and to give at least a forced, half-hearted endorsement to her vanquisher.
Instead, she still is campaigning against the former president. And he still is campaigning against her.
It is the American political equivalent of the precept of Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who said that “war is the continuation of policy with other means.” Ms. Haley’s suspension of her campaign can be seen as the continuation of her campaign by other means.
She even pointedly employed the word “suspending” in regards to her campaign, so as to be poised to revive it should Mr. Trump falter.
In brief remarks, she threw a dramatic challenge to the victor, saying that the former president will not inherit but instead must earn her support and that of her backers – a provocation that is without modern American precedent.
It is not clear what that would entail, but the man who wrote a book called The Art of the Deal is not inclined to make deals with someone who, from New Hampshire to California, accelerated her attacks on him, charging that he sows chaos in American political life and questioning not only his policy positions but also his character and moral and mental fitness.
Immediately, the Joe Biden campaign welcomed the supporters of the former United Nations ambassador. For his part, Mr. Trump once again demeaned his Republican rival, who he said on social media “got TROUNCED last night in record-setting fashion” and was the beneficiary of “Radical Left Democrats.”
With Mr. Trump running as the functional equivalent of an incumbent – he has repeatedly said, without evidence, that he actually won the 2020 election – Ms. Haley was running as the equivalent of a challenger to a sitting president. That itself is rare, and customarily prompts enormous bitterness within the party subjected to such a contest.
The best antecedent is the effort of then senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts to deny the renomination of sitting President Jimmy Carter in 1980. That challenge fell short, and the bitterness continued through to the New York convention, where Mr. Kennedy said, “I have come here tonight not to argue as a candidate but to affirm a cause.”
In his remarks, Mr. Kennedy quoted Tennyson’s 1842 poem Ulysses (“Tho’ much is taken, much abides”) and then issued a stirring valedictory, saying: “For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”
Ms. Haley issued much the same statement – but the difference is that Mr. Kennedy, in a strained moment, eventually but awkwardly shook hands with the President on the convention stage. Ms. Haley has done no such thing, in reality or metaphorically, and made it clear that such a gesture will not come easily.
“I have no regrets,” she said. “And though I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in.”
Ms. Haley clearly was disappointed if not surprised by what turned out to be a Trump Super Tuesday sweep except for her narrow victory in Vermont. Just a day earlier, her campaign had announced a “leadership team” for the Louisiana primary, 19 days in the future, a symbol of her hopes to move forward as a candidate. That now is moot, in Louisiana and elsewhere.
As a formal candidate, the last Trump opponent standing is stepping away but not disavowing her view, expressed on the Republican primary hustings, that “maybe Donald Trump is the problem.”
Less than a day before Ms. Haley’s Wednesday remarks, Mr. Trump said she had “gone haywire” and was a “crazy” and “very angry person,” adding, “we’ll see if she straightens out.”
Political observers will see whether Mr. Trump, whose campaign treasury is in difficult straits, feels the need to reach out to Ms. Haley’s donors, who raised US$12-million last month and US$1-million over the last weekend. That will be a tough sell, even for a congenital salesman.
Mr. Trump may not rise to the challenge of winning over her donors and supporters, but he cannot ignore the fact that his victories, on Super Tuesday and in the weeks before, were substantial but still revealing of his political vulnerability. Ms. Haley took more than a third of the vote in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Colorado, Utah and Virginia, and a quarter of the vote in Maine, Minnesota and North Carolina. More threatening to Mr. Trump is the exit polls from North Carolina, where both he and Mr. Biden surely will campaign: Four-fifths of Haley voters said they wouldn’t support Mr. Trump in November.
In her post-Super Tuesday message, Ms. Haley called on Republicans to “turn away from the darkness of hatred and division.” That remains the biggest challenge the 45th president faces as he prepares to run against Mr. Biden – and as Ms. Haley continues to oppose Mr. Trump.