Monday, April 9, 2012

Haley Shouldn't be VP

Nikki Haley was a Tea Party favorite when she ran for her position in South Carolina. Mitt Romney was one of the first politicians to come out and endorse her, to campaign with her, and frankly he has done such for many of the rising stars of the Republican Party. Mitt Romney will most likely be our next President, and he will definitely be our Republican Nominee for the Presidency.

The reason that Nikki Haley's name is being thrown around for VP is because she's a woman and that some people think that it would be similar to McCain picking Palin. Here's the first and foremost problem that I have with this comparison... John McCain and Mitt Romney are two totally different people and their similarities only go as deep as having ran for the Presidency. That is it.

Mitt Romney is a businessman turned Governor running for the Presidency. John McCain was a war hero turned politician in Arizona. Mitt Romney is fighting the battle that needs to be fought and that is the economy opposed to John McCain who was fighting the battle of foreign policy which, his VP did not have much experience on. I feel comparing Mitt Romney and the possible Nikki Haley to McCain/Palin does neither of them justice. Mitt Romney is well known, he has been vetted. Palin as much as some people may have loved hre, was a nobody because no Democrat cared to venture far enough to Alaska to ever do a story on her. Nikki Haley however has been in a more national spotlight.

You must think about what it was like when John McCain picked Palin, it was on the cusp of the election, just months away and Palin was not even an option in the eyes of most pundits or political attack dogs. The only reason she had been such a curve-ball was because she had not been vetted. Then when they did vet her they tore apart every aspect of her life from her pregnant daughter, her child with a disability and the fact that she had been in a beauty pageant. They attacked her every way possible and yet they were unable to dig up too much dirt on Mrs. Palin.

Nikki Haley is a much different story. All you have to do is type in her name on Google and you will see that her approval ratings have been dropping and that she is under investigation for tax fraud. She herself and various conservative blogs say that she is not but just go with me on this, how many people actually do the research to find out whether a story is true or not? Most Americans will make a quick decision by simply typing into Google, Nikki Haley and whatever pops up they'll make a decision within seconds.

The other issue that I have with Nikki Haley is that, Romney lost South Carolina even with her endorsement. Even worse, he lost it to Newt Gingrich. Why would we pull a governor who cannot even convince her own constituents as to why the guy she has endorsed is the right candidate to lead our country? She does not seem to have that much of a convincing personality. And she being of Indian decent, sure she'll keep the 8 Indian Republicans that are across the country (because we are at such a risk of losing them!) but there's this argument that she'll help bring back the women's vote.

Let me first tell you this is completely wrong. The idea that just simply running a woman as the VP will help the Republican party does not work. Independent women who are pro-choice are not going to change their mind simply because a woman has been chosen as a VP slot. Nikki Haley is not pro-choice so that is not going to help one bit. Nikki Haley also is not a victim so any woman that identifies with Barack Obama and the Liberal media will not be voting for a Republican ticket simply because we've chosen a woman.

There's also one final issue with the idea of running Nikki Haley as a VP choice and no I'm not talking about her abysmal approval ratings only 2 years into office. As a Vice President you need to be able to lead in the off chance that the President dies, is killed, ect., Could you honestly say that you would be willing to vote for Nikki Haley as President? We are in economic turmoil at the moment and Romney is running on the idea of fixing the economy. If anything, Nikki Haley will hurt him because Obama and the Democrats (I feel like it's a really terrible band name every time I say that.) will then have the same argument we all had with Palin because we had to defend her capacity to run the country if McCain was to pass on... Can we have that argument with Nikki Haley, a governor of a state like South Carolina, that she truly can govern an entire nation?

I think the best route for Romney to take is to take a curve-ball candidate with a clean record. The two choices that I personally would be ecstatic to vote for would be Romney/Rubio or Romney/Ryan. The reason I would say Romney/Rubio, he's young, he's been in office for a decent amount of time and he has a powerful roll as a speaker. His age might be something people argue against but he's a candidate that would rile up true conservatives. I cannot think of one reason as a conservative NOT to like Rubio and the only thing Democrats could try and hammer him on is his legality of being a citizen which, do they want to toot the horn of their Kenyan leader?

Marco Rubio, and Paul Ryan for that matter, both stick to their guns when it comes to taking on opposition and they are both hated by Democrats because they are problem solvers. There are some politicians like Rick Santorum that I only ever hear about when he's stuck a well placed foot in his mouth. Then there are politicians like Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan that are always fighting for what they believe in. Hell, we all know Paul Ryan as being the guy to push Grandma off the cliff!!! (If you're getting under liberals claws like that then you're doing something right.) Not to mention Paul Ryan recently has come up with a budget that, ironically, not a single Democrat voted for. This sounds like a partisan debate we can have come the election.

Paul Ryan is also from a state that we need to win this go around. Well, maybe we don't NEED to win it if we win some other strategically placed states, but it is a state that if we have a Wisconsin native running on the ticket it will help deliver the state to us.

There are so many names out there that are being thrown out that I'm starting to believe that pundits and other politicians have no idea what they're talking about. Run this person, run that person, this persons on the short list... I'm surprised I haven't heard Romney/Norris (yes the Chuck Norris) as an option for this upcoming election. Let's start gearing up for one hell of an election by not giving ourselves a handicapped ticket with someone like Nikki Haley.

1 comment: