Actually The Democrats Fell For Nikki Haley's Cunning Plan, Says Nikki Haley

Ah ha! You thought Nikki Haley was trapped in there with you, but you were trapped in there with Nikki Haley!

Having tripped over her own dick while trying to answer the most basic question in American history outside of “Which former South Carolina governor came in at best a very distant second in the 2024 Republican presidential primary,” Nikki Haley was in full-on Hazmat cleanup mode on a New Hampshire radio show this morning.

Haley, you’ll recall (because it was yesterday), had answered a question about what caused the Civil War not with “SLAVERY! IT’S ALWAYS SLAVERY!” but with some inane word salad about freedom and liberty and capitalism and some other stuff that was drowned out the sound of all her campaign consultants simultaneously smacking their own foreheads.

But they regrouped and got the candidate on “The Pulse of New Hampshire” radio show this morning, where she could make the old reliable standby argument that the guy who asked Haley the question at her town hall was actually planted there by Democrats out for a spin:

“Yes I know it’s about slavery, I’m from the South, of course you know it’s about slavery.”

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PREVIOUSLY! AS IN LIKE THREE HOURS AGO!

Asked About Cause of Civil War, Nikki Haley Leaves Out 'Slavery,' Goes Full Miss Teen South Carolina

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The South is the one area of the country where you’re probably most likely to NOT know that, but do go on.

“The second point of this is, why did this happen? Jack, the media has yet to connect the dots. First of all, I am the only candidate that Biden and the Democrats are running billboard ads against in Iowa. If you watch my town halls, this happened my entire last swing, it’ll happen this swing. Biden and the Democrats keep sending Democrat plants to do things like this to get the media to react. We know when they’re there. We know what they’re doing.”

So then why weren’t you ready for them on Wednesday night? You fell right into the Democrats’ dastardly trap! Joe Biden is probably sitting in the Oval Office twirling his moustache and laughing maniacally at you as we speak!

“Why is Biden doing that? Why isn’t he doing it to any other candidate? It’s because he knows I defeat him by double digits. It’s also because they know they want to run against Trump. They’re trying to help Trump, they’ve been trying to help Trump this whole time.”

Nikki Haley is something like 50 points behind Trump in the polls. He doesn’t need the Democrats’ help to beat her.

Haley then ran off a litany of all the ways “they” are trying to help Trump, like, uh, throwing him off the ballot in Colorado? Okay.

Going on offense with a bunch of paranoid conspiracy theories about a shadowy “they” interfering in the Republican primary is actually probably the best move Haley could make right now. Certainly acknowledging upfront that slavery actually caused the Civil War and stopping there isn’t going to help, or else she would have just done that on Wednesday night and saved herself all this hassle.

“Yes, I’ll answer this question today, and we’ll keep responding to it, and the reason this happens is because in our town halls, I answer every question, and they are planting them there, and I am going to answer those questions, and so this is just part of what’s going to continue to happen.”

None of this holier-than-thou ranting obscures the fact that it does not matter if the person who asked the slavery question was a plant or not. The simple fact is, when offered the easiest of all layups, Haley couldn’t even hit the backboard. Because showing anything less than love for Confederates and their cause is how you lose GOP primaries nearly 159 years after the Civil War ended.

The New Hampshire interviewer then asked Haley if she knew the questioner was a Democrat plant at the time, and of course she did, don’t be stupid:

“No, it was definitely a Democrat plant. That’s why I said ‘what does it mean to you?’ And if you notice, he didn’t answer anything.”

What he actually answered was that he wasn’t the one running for president. Which is true. And if you believe for one second that Haley was actually improvising a cunning plan to smoke out this Democrat plant, to put him on the spot and unmask him for what he was in front of a room full of a tiny handful of primary voters who couldn’t help but be impressed by her quick wit and actions in what passes for a campaign trail crisis, we’ve got a bridge in Charleston to sell you.

Anyway, great pitch to voters there, that you are so dumb you can get easily baited into giving nonsensical answers to easy questions. Republican voters already have Donald Trump to do that.

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia pretty much nailed it in many fewer words:

President Biden’s social media team also got in an easy dunk, though if you ask Haley, she’ll probably tell you that it’s only because she terrifies them:

We’ve decided to call boneheaded and somewhat racist goofs like this “Macaca gaffes.” There will probably be a lot more of them before this primary is over.

[Pulse of New Hampshire]