Nikki Haley takes aim at the Olds

Haley takes aim at the Olds

Nikki Haley launched her heavily trailed presidential campaign today with a speech in Charleston. The former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador walked on to “Eye of the Tiger” and came out swinging with a not-so-subtle jab at over-the-hill politicians refusing to give way to a younger generation.

“We’re ready, ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past,” she said. “If you’re tired of losing, then put your trust in a new generation. And if you want to win, not just as a party, but as a country, then stand with me.”

Haley, to her credit, backed up this rather platitudinal generational pitch with a mischievous and concrete policy: mandatory mental fitness checks for officeholders over the age of seventy-five. It’s an equal-opportunity barb that hits both Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The charge against Haley appears to be that she offers nothing more than generic Republicanism. Confusingly, that is also the logic of her run. She has eschewed the populist tone taken by Trump and isn’t charging into a DeSantis-style war on woke. Maybe that means she’s at odds with the moment and certain to face-plant. Or maybe it means she outperforms low expectations and demonstrates the appeal of a more normie, less online kind of conservatism.

One launch-day surprise was an endorsement from Ralph Norman. The South Carolina congressman and Freedom Caucus anti-McCarthy holdout praised Haley: “It’s time for a reset and a new chapter in national Republican politics, and there’s no better person to help write that new chapter than our former governor and my good friend, Nikki Haley!”

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Will Haley win? Almost certainly not, given how far she trails Trump and DeSantis in the polls. For a former governor with national name recognition now five years on from holding any kind of office, her presidential run is a no-brainer bid to remain in the conversation. And by being the only candidate in the race other than Trump, she is set for a starring role until the field gets more crowded.

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DC Dems in disarray

DC Democrats remain at odds with one another about two controversial pieces of legislation that, as I wrote last week, have put the District on the wrong side of the House of Representatives. One of the bills would soften the city’s criminal code at a time of rising crime; the other would give non-citizens the right to vote. Both have suspended the usual rules about Democratic support for DC self-government. Twenty-five of the House Democrats who supported a statehood bill last year voted against the non-citizens voting legislation, while DC mayor Muriel Bowser has been unusually relaxed about congressional interference in the city’s politics.

Now the District’s “shadow” senator, Michael D. Brown has blamed the city council for the clash. “Why would you send a bill up to a conservative Republican House of Representatives that says you’re going to let a noncitizen vote?” he told Axios. “The City Council in the District of Columbia acts like a petulant child.”

Meanwhile, Angie Craig, the Democrat who was attacked in her apartment building’s elevator last week, has called for a crackdown on crime in the District in an interview with CBS News: “I got attacked by someone who the District of Columbia has not prosecuted fully over the course of almost a decade, over the course of twelve assaults before mine that morning. And so I think we have to think about how in the world we can make sure that we’re not just letting criminals out.”

Craig voted to block the DC council’s legislation last week. The Biden White House, however, has opted to side with the council, indicating it will veto any congressional legislation blocking the District’s lawmakers.

A heavyweight clash in West Virginia?

According to polling commissioned by the Senate Leadership Fund, the Mountain State’s man-mountain of a governor, Jim Justice, is the only Republican who can defeat West Virginia senator Joe Manchin in 2024. The survey compares Justice’s performance against Manchin with the only Republican to have declared in the race, Congressman Alex Mooney, and the GOP candidate who Manchin defeated in 2018, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. Justice, the poll finds, is the only one who beats Manchin.

The poll is a not-so-subtle nudge from Mitch McConnell, who sees in West Virginia’s Democratic senator a frustrating exception to the state’s dramatic realignment from blue to red. Justice, a former Democrat himself, doesn’t seem to mind the prodding given that he tweeted the results of the poll himself.

Feinstein finally retires

After an awkward few months of candidates throwing their hat in the ring to replace Dianne Feinstein before she had actually announced her retirement, the eighty-nine-year-old senator yesterday confirmed that she will be stepping down when her term ends in January 2025. Feinstein has long been the subject of reports of declining mental acuity — something even the announcement of her retirement hinted at. After Feinstein’s office released the statement announcing her departure, she was asked by a reporter if she had a message for Senate colleagues. “I haven’t made that decision. I haven’t released anything,” she said, before a staffer interrupted: “Senator, we put out your statement.” Feinstein: “You put out the statement? I should have known they put it out.”