When asked if she planned to take her fizzled out, longer-than-longshot bid for president to the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, Margaret Chase Smith responded, “I see no reason to drop by the wayside.”
She went on to become the first woman put in nomination for president by a major party, though not even Nelson Rockefeller could stop the Goldwater train.
Sixty years later, Nikki Haley came to Fort Worth on the eve of the Texas primary election to make her own declaration of conscience in a political rally that could have been themed a “Return to Normalcy.”
The Covid crisis, rising prices on everything from a frozen pizza to a home, the national debt, and an “umbrella of anger and division” in the national discourse.
The kids, she says, don’t know what normal is, particularly when it comes to the dark comedy that has become American electoral politics.
“It’s not normal under Joe Biden to allow millions of illegal immigrants to come into this country and do nothing to stop them,” an energized candidate, the daughter of Indian immigrants, told an equally enthusiastic gathering of several hundred people in the early evening Monday at Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall in the Fort Worth Stockyards.
“It’s not normal for Joe Biden to worry more about gender pronouns than whether the kids can read them. It’s not normal for Joe Biden to have these wars around the world. And it’s not normal for Donald Trump to pick the side of a tyrant over our allies. It’s not normal for Donald Trump to go and pay $60 million in campaign contributions toward his personal court cases. It’s not normal for Donald Trump to continue to mock the military. And it’s not normal when Joe Biden calls his opponents fascists and Donald Trump calls his opponents vermin.
“None of that is normal. We are blessed to live in America. And we know that America is better than this.”
By her side was Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, who joined the former governor of South Carolina onstage to make a formal endorsement for today’s primary election. Former Mayor Betsy Price, who has been a loyal foot soldier for Haley throughout the campaign, stood by the candidate, too.
Most analysts would consider coming within double digits of former President Donald Trump as work well done. Haley has stayed in the race despite the longest of odds, yet she is the last standing from an original field — not named Trump — that numbered a dozen or so, I believe. The memory becomes hazy after Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum, two other governors whose candidacies didn’t register on any Richter scales.
“I defeated a dozen of fellas,” she said. “I just have one more fella I gotta catch up to.”
She’s using some license. (Don’t knock that.) She hasn’t defeated anyone. However, she did outlast them all. To date, Haley’s only primary victory has been in Washington, D.C., where she won 63% of the district’s 2,000 Republican ballots cast.
Her supporters are hoping that triumph will propel her to unexpected success today. It did not translate to victory in North Dakota on Monday.
Whether Haley will continue past today is in doubt. More than one-third of the total delegates available in both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries will be awarded today, Super Tuesday. Sixteen states and one U.S. territory are conducting presidential nominating contests.
Trump is expected to get all of the Republican delegates up for grabs.
Haley, however, will certainly do better in Texas than Margaret Chase Smith, who didn’t even campaign here in 1964. Chase Smith accepted no campaign contributions that year which meant she presumably couldn’t afford the train fare for the conveyance.
Haley poked at the U.S. Congress, calling it “the most privileged nursing home in the country,” which would have been offensive ageism had not everyone there agreed with it.
“These are people making decisions on the future of our economy,” she said.
She should have added, but didn’t, that if elected she would become the youngest woman ever elected president.
Lee Littlefield, 40, of Fort Worth is the kind of crossover moderate voter Haley appeals to.
“She just strikes the right tone,” said Littlefield, whose first vote went for George W. Bush in 2000 and who switched to Barack Obama and most recently Joe Biden. “She kept saying ‘normal,’ going back to a president sounding like a president. And then she has a good record in South Carolina getting the budget under control.”
Haley was interrupted several times by moshing protesters advocating for Palestine. Fort Worth police and presumably Tannahill’s staff got their steps in in escorting to the front door those making their own declarations of conscience.
In comparison, the handful or so of Trumpsters out front appeared to be of the most refined social positions. Cotillion training in their youth had obviously taken root.
“Say no to neocon Nikki Haley,” one advised to me.
Parker and Price are in the minority of Texas Republicans lending support to Haley, who worked in the Trump administration as the ambassador to the United Nations. The party’s top officeholders in the state have lined up for the one-term Republican president, Trump, now attempting to become the second to win nonconsecutive presidential terms. Grover Cleveland is the only one to do that, in the late 1800s.
Those on the Trump train include Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, whose father, Trump once suggested, was on the grassy knoll up to no good on Nov. 22, 1963.
Just more normal stuff out of American politics in the 21st century. Good thing we know a little about bronc riding in Texas. The general election year promises to be something out of the Wild West.
“None of that is normal,” Haley concluded. “We are blessed to live in America. And we know that America is better than this. Now we have to do something about it. My parents came here 50 years ago to an America that was strong and proud and full of opportunity. I want [my children and grandchildren] to know that country.”
