Peter Lucas: Nikki Haley is Joe Biden’s best weapon against Trump

Peter Lucas/ Boston Herald

 

Forget John Kerry.

The best thing President Joe Biden has going for him on the campaign trail is Nikki Haley.

While it is true that Kerry, 80, is leaving his post as Biden’s climate czar to campaign for the 81-year-old president, it is likely that Kerry, a public relations nightmare, will turn off more voters than he will turn on.

They may love him in Davos but not so much in Dorchester.

So far, Republican Nikki Haley is Joe Biden’s best asset.

Her refusal to drop out of the Republican primary race after losing to Donald Trump in both the GOP caucuses in Iowa and in the New Hampshire primary, only plays into Biden’s hands.

It means that she will only step up her attacks on Trump even though she has little, if any, hope of defeating the former president anywhere along the primary campaign trail to the GOP nomination.

She is even trailing Trump badly in her home state of South Carolina, where she served as governor for two terms. South Carolina will hold the next primary on Feb. 24.

Everyone, including the janitor at the South Carolina State House in Columbia, seems to have endorsed Trump, even U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, who Haley appointed to the Senate in 2012 to fill out the term of Sen. Jim DeMint, who retired.

Scott, the first Black Republican to represent the state in the US. Senate since Reconstruction, endorsed Trump after he dropped out of the GOP presidential contest.

While anti-Trumpers might criticize Scott for ingratitude in turning on Haley, the same could be said of Haley who turned on Trump after he named her ambassador to the UN.

Other South Carolinians who have endorsed Trump over Haley include U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Henry McMaster, Lt. Gov Pamela Evette, U.S. Rep Nancy Mace along with several other members of Congress.

So, if Nikki Haley can’t prevail in her home state of South Carolina, where can she win?

She can win with Joe Biden.

She can also win in the hearts and minds  of disenchanted anti-Trump Republicans, Trump-hating Democrats and independents.

Fortunately for Trump there are not enough of them to derail Trump’s drive to the party nomination.

Unfortunately for the former president, though, Haley can seriously hurt Trump among women voters, regardless of party, as happened to him in the last election.

Trump in the past has made a habit of insulting women, whether it was calling former adult movie star Stormy Daniels “horseface,” or mocking the looks of former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina, a 2016 presidential opponent.

He could get away with it largely because he was, well, Donald Trump, a novelty, and back then he was running in a crowded field of candidates.

Now he is facing a woman who will not get out of his way, a woman who will not accept defeat but claims a victory in each of the two contests she has lost, Iowa and New Hampshire.

Not only will she not go away, but she is also a woman who welcomes his insults. It bolsters her contention that a chaotic Trump is no longer fit to be president.

He calls her “birdbrain,” and she loves it because she knows she is getting under his skin. She says he is “totally unhinged.”

Trump may have said the same about E. Jean Carroll, who was awarded a whopping $83 million in damages by a Manhattan jury Friday after a previous jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her thirty years go.

Trump’s problems with women never seem to go away.

Haley cannot defeat Trump for the party nomination. But she may not have to.

All she has to do is keep her campaign alive and wait for Trump to crash one way or another. The Republican Party nominating convention is six months away.

Anything can happen to Trump from now to the July convention. And should he go down, Haley will still be standing.

It is not much to run on, but it’s all she’s got.

*Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.