Nikki Haley’s supporters are fast to repeat a theme that has develop into central to her marketing campaign: She has been underestimated earlier than.
So when Ms. Haley, the previous South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, recounted on Thursday night what the previous Act Daily News anchor Don Lemon had mentioned about her throughout a current broadcast, the gang of lots of who had gathered to listen to her communicate erupted in applause.
Ms. Haley, who has couched her marketing campaign message in a name for “a new generation of leaders,” inspired the gang to “leave the drama of the past” behind — a thinly veiled allusion to former President Donald J. Trump’s administration. And she repeated her requires time period limits and psychological competency assessments for elected leaders, including that she was prepared to be versatile about age ranges.
“We’ve got to make sure that these people are ready to fight — and I don’t care if you do it for ages 50 and over,” she advised the gang in Greer, within the northwest nook of South Carolina. “Because yes, I am in my prime.”
She added: “God bless Don Lemon. I just want to say, ‘Who’s in their prime now?’”
Ms. Haley, 51, was alluding to a second in February when Mr. Lemon mentioned that he was “uncomfortable” about Ms. Haley’s elevating the query of age and psychological competency amongst political leaders.
Ms. Haley “isn’t in her prime, sorry,” Mr. Lemon mentioned. “A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.”
Mr. Lemon later apologized for the remarks. He was ousted from Act Daily News final week.
The line resonated particularly with girls within the crowd, and a number of other attendees mentioned they noticed Ms. Haley’s response to Mr. Lemon as a artistic technique of mentioning — and making enjoyable of — a second of sexism.
Yet, the power that Ms. Haley can seize in a room just like the one in Greer contrasts together with her battle to construct nationwide momentum in an more and more crowded Republican major area. She will probably quickly need to take care of the entry of a fellow South Carolinian, Senator Tim Scott, into the race, in addition to with the 2 candidates who’re garnering essentially the most consideration and the majority of the help in polls: Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
After her stump speech, as Ms. Haley greeted supporters and took photographs with them, Rachel Dankel, an actual property agent in her 50s who is predicated in Greenville, S.C., mentioned she had advised Ms. Haley how a lot she appreciated her pushing again on Mr. Lemon’s phrases. When she first heard about his remark, she mentioned, “I wanted to throw up.”
“I thought that was, to me, the worst thing that somebody could say,” she mentioned. “That’s so degrading. You have men in their 80s, and they’re not over — they’re not too old?”
Ms. Haley, who was the primary Republican presidential candidate to problem Mr. Trump within the present marketing campaign, has aimed to separate herself from the pack by taking early stances on points like age limits amongst political leaders. Last week, she instructed in an interview with Fox News that President Biden, who’s 80, wouldn’t reside till the top of his second time period if re-elected.
Ms. Haley has additionally raised cash off Mr. Lemon’s feedback. Her marketing campaign web site sells a beverage koozie that reads: “Past my prime? Hold my beer”
Ms. Haley’s marketing campaign is relying on her in-state bona fides — she was a longtime State House member in a district near the State Capitol and the primary girl to function governor — to bolster her standing within the Palmetto State. The South Carolina major is third on the Republican calendar, after Iowa and New Hampshire, and it’s the Haley marketing campaign’s perception that her home-state voters will propel her to the highest of the first area.
And whereas she is polling within the low single digits in most nationwide surveys, an April ballot carried out by Winthrop University confirmed her together with her 18 p.c help in her dwelling state, nicely behind Mr. Trump however inside hanging distance of Mr. DeSantis.
“There’s a certain segment out there that’s very excited about her running, and then there’s the hard-core Trumpists who are mad at her for running,” mentioned Chip Felkel, a South Carolina Republican political strategist.
At the rally on Thursday, Christy Willis, 50, a trainer who remains to be undecided about whom she is going to help in 2024, mentioned she had not heard about Mr. Lemon’s feedback earlier than listening to Ms. Haley repeat them on Thursday on the Cannon Center, an occasion area. After studying of the context, she mentioned she had discovered the back-and-forth intriguing.
“It does open a discussion about ageism and sexism and feminism,” she mentioned, referring to Mr. Biden’s age. “He’s allowed to do things that a woman probably would not be able to do.”
Source: www.nytimes.com