After the Iowa caucus, Nikki Haley is our worst best chance to stop Trump | Opinion

The best news from the Iowa caucuses last night can be found in the compelling history of the Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz presidencies. If you’re a little confused, that’s because Huckabee won the 2008 caucuses, Santorum won in 2012 and Cruz won in 2016. A handful of Iowa delegates and bragging rights going into New Hampshire didn’t do them much good. No presidency followed.

Donald Trump shouldn’t get all full of himself just yet.

In 2008, John McCain went on to win the New Hampshire primary and the nomination. Mitt Romney did the same in 2012 and Trump, ditto for 2016. And while Iowa second-place finisher Ron DeSantis is nowhere in the New Hampshire polling, Nikki Haley — whom DeSantis barely edged out — is within striking distance of Trump in New Hampshire. Perhaps a win there could break the Republican Party’s populist fever and get enough voters to be willing to turn the page from Trump.

If Haley pulls it off, it won’t be because she is an amazing person, but rather, she’ll pull it off despite a record of meh accomplishment and very little backbone.

Given that she credits Hillary Clinton with inspiring her career in politics, it is a wonder she has any Republican votes at all. I keep asking myself: Which of Clinton’s many sleazy escapades provided the inspiration? Was it covering up for husband’s infidelity, her shady health care task force or the mysterious loss of law firm billing records Congress was after? Maybe it was the inspirational, feminist way Clinton married her way into power.

And while Haley presents herself as a tough politician, when times have arrived for her to show a backbone, she’s suffered from political osteoporosis. There was that time when nine Black people including a preacher were slaughtered in a Black church in South Carolina. At first, she didn’t know what to do. Then she decided to take down the Confederate battle flag from where it flew on the South Carolina State House grounds. But, she wrote years later, “The evil act (Dylann Roof) had committed had robbed the good-intentioned South Carolinians who supported the flag of this symbol of heritage and service.”

That flag is no symbol of heritage and service — it is a symbol of slavery. I’ll tell you where that flag belongs, Nikki. It belongs on the homes, cars and lapels of people who want to say clearly that they don’t want to be part of decent society. The Confederate battle flag has no place in public, and that was obvious before Roof started pulling the trigger of a Glock. Enough Black people had already died at the hands of those who espoused the Confederate cause to make that obvious. Haley still doesn’t get it. Perhaps that’s why she couldn’t remember the Civil War was caused by slavery.

Then came the call from Trump to leave her embattled South Carolina governorship and slide into the United Nations ambassador role. In a bare two years, she shined her tough foreign policy bona fides while representing a man who likes to cuddle with dictators.

What did she achieve? I am not sure. Her website says, “As ambassador, Haley defended U.S. interests, kept our country safe, and championed human rights.” OK. She also did what she was told by a man who tried to steal an election and she never said a word about his unctuous demeanor toward the butcher in Moscow, the tyrant in Beijing and the nutball in Pyongyang.

So, yeah, I am not a fan of Nikki Haley. But she is our last, best hope for derailing the Trump train. She has my vote.

I will say one thing for her: She’s stubborn and persistent. Somehow she convinced her boyfriend and later husband to change his name from Bill to Michael. Now that’s something Hillary Clinton would do. Maybe it will be enough to make her president.

David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square and a regular Star Opinion correspondent.