Nikki Haley’s L’Envoi — for Now

Governor Haley’s remarks suspending her White House campaign offer a glimpse of what might have been for the GOP had primary voters cottoned to her big-tent, center-right policy agenda. Mrs. Haley touted traditional Republican themes like term limits for Congress, fiscal responsibility, and the need for a robust American foreign policy role — including aid for Ukraine. She also warned the GOP against embracing the “darkness of hatred and division.”How prescient that warning will prove no doubt depends in large part on what kind of campaign President Trump chooses to run. While Mrs. Haley wished Mr. Trump well, she pointedly did not endorse the GOP frontrunner. She pointed to Margaret Thatcher, who, Mrs. Haley said, had “provided some good advice.” It was the Iron Lady who advised, as Mrs. Haley put it, “Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.”The lack of an endorsement, Mrs. Haley explained, came despite her having “always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee.” She averred that it is now Mr. Trump’s job “to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it, who did not support it.” She added that “politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away,” and reminded listeners that “our conservative cause badly needs more people.”This November will mark a startling fact — that it has been 20 years since a Republican candidate, George W. Bush, won the popular vote for the presidency. As Mrs. Haley has put it, “We’ve lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections.” Said she: “Our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans.” Then again, too, same could be said by the first Republican president, one A. Lincoln.Mrs. Haley’s remarks this morning sounded themes in language that is plenty presidential. “Our national debt will eventually crush our economy,” she warned, decrying the “road to socialism” and stressing that smaller “government is not only necessary for our freedom, it is necessary for our survival.” She condemned the Congress as “dysfunctional and only getting worse,” lamenting that “it is filled with followers, not leaders.”Her call for term limits is unconstitutional absent an amendment The New York Sun opposes. Yet she also voiced a straightforward message of support for “our allies in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan,” not only as a “moral imperative” but as a practical matter. “If we retreat further,” she explained, “there will be more war, not less.” She emphasized the need to “stand strong for the cause of freedom,” and she did a fine job of it at the United Nations.In prior weeks, Mrs. Haley had been urging Republicans to look beyond their enthusiasm for Mr. Trump and consider his electability among independents and others outside of the right wing of the GOP. “I am giving you every red flag I possibly can about the direction that the country is going in,” she had said, a message that fell on deaf ears. This morning, she dialed it down to say “our country is too precious to let our differences divide us.”Today may mark the end, for now, of the governor’s presidential bid. It’s hard, though, to imagine that this is the last we will hear of Nikki Haley. She closed her remarks with words from Joshua, commending them to all Americans, but especially, she said, the women young and old who had been inspired by her campaign. “Be strong and courageous,” she urged. “Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged, for God will be with you wherever you go.”

Nikki Haley’s L’Envoi — for Now

Nikki Haley’s L’Envoi — for Now

More from the New York Sun

After Russia’s Reprieve From U.S. Sanctions, Trump Administration Tells Europe To Step Up, Quit Playing Both Sides

Netanyahu Offers High Praise to Trump After U.S. President’s Endorsement, Calling Him Greatest Friend Ever to Israel

Democrats Hold Major Enthusiasm Advantage Headed Into the Midterms, Polls Show

A Sublime Deviation From the Norm

Sonos Gives Its Headphones Another Hearing

Israel Calls on French Jews To Move to the Jewish State as Riots and Arson Engulf France; Macron Addresses Nation

Why So Many American Men Are Afraid of Dressing Well

NATO Eyes Mounting Drone Threat to Romania After Incursions of Airspace, Attacks on Tankers

More from the New York Sun

After Russia’s Reprieve From U.S. Sanctions, Trump Administration Tells Europe To Step Up, Quit Playing Both Sides

Netanyahu Offers High Praise to Trump After U.S. President’s Endorsement, Calling Him Greatest Friend Ever to Israel

Democrats Hold Major Enthusiasm Advantage Headed Into the Midterms, Polls Show

A Sublime Deviation From the Norm

Sonos Gives Its Headphones Another Hearing

Israel Calls on French Jews To Move to the Jewish State as Riots and Arson Engulf France; Macron Addresses Nation

Why So Many American Men Are Afraid of Dressing Well

NATO Eyes Mounting Drone Threat to Romania After Incursions of Airspace, Attacks on Tankers