South Carolina: With the aim of moving from the “stale ideas and faded ideas” of the past, the Indian American leader Nikki Haley on Wednesday, announced her candidacy for the 2024 Republican Presidential nomination.
Addressing a public meeting, here in Charleston, the former South Carolina Governor said, “I have devoted my life to this fight and I am just getting started. For a strong America, for a proud America, I am running for the President of the United States of America.”
Nikki Haley said, “I stand before you as the daughter of immigrants, as the wife of a combat veteran, and as the mom of two amazing children. I’ve served as governor of the great state of South Carolina and as America’s ambassador to the UN. Above all else, I’m a grateful American citizen who knows our best days are yet to come if we unite and fight to save our country.”
She said that her parents left India in search of a better life, and they found it in Bamberg, South Carolina.
“I am the proud daughter of the Indian immigrants. My parents left India in search of a better life, they found it in Bamburg, South Carolina. Every day my parents reminded my brothers and sisters, that even on our worst day, we are ‘blessed’ to live in America,” she said.
Attacking the Biden government, she said, “Now America is falling behind, the US is slipping, and nobody embodies that failure more than Joe Biden. Our leaders put too much trust in big government, and too little trust in our people. The national debt is at 30 trillion dollars. This is not America, that called to my parents, and this is not the America that I will leave to my children.”
“We are ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past, and we are more than ready for a new generation to lead us into the future,” she added
Giving a ‘message’ to the Republican party, she said that the party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections.
“Our cause is right–but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans. Well–that ends today. If you’re tired of losing, then put your trust in a new generation. And if you want to win – not just as a party, but as a country – then stand with me!” she said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Nikki Haley announced in a video on her Twitter, that she will be running for President in 2024, challenging her fellow candidate Donald Trump.
While announcing her decision, Nikki Haley called for new leadership in the party that she admitted had repeatedly failed to grab the popular vote in the presidential elections.
While sharing the video, she wrote, “Get excited! Time for a new generation. Let’s do this!”
“Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections. That has to change,” The Hill quoted Nikki Haley as saying.
“Joe Biden’s record is abysmal, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Washington establishment has failed us over and over and over again. It’s time for a new generation of leadership,” she added.
In the video posted on Twitter, Nikki Haley said, “I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not black, not white. I was different. But my mom would always say, ‘Your job is not to focus on the differences, but the similarities’ and my parents reminded me and my siblings every day how blessed we were to live in the US.”
She further said, “Some look at our past as evidence that America’s founding principles are bad. They say the promise of freedom is just made up. Some think our ideas are not just wrong, but racist and evil. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
A former president of the National Association of Women Business Owners, she was first elected to the South Carolina House in 2004. Six years later, she became the first woman elected as governor of the state in 2010 and was the youngest governor in the nation when she took office in 2011. She resigned in the middle of her second term to become Trump’s ambassador to the UN – a role she served in until the end of 2018, CNN reported.
Haley began her political career as a state representative. She was elected the Governor of a staunch republican state South Carolina, by a very small margin of 51 per cent to 47 per cent. However, she went on to triple her margin during her re-election in 2014.
In a prominent moment from her career, Haley in 2015, signed a bill to remove the Confederate battle flag– the military emblem of the South’s fight to preserve slavery — from the South Carolina House.
After President Donald J. Trump chose her as his ambassador to the United Nations, Ms. Haley was confirmed overwhelmingly by the Senate, 96 to 4. She would serve in that role for about two years before resigning at the end of 2018.
As per The NYT, Haley was a face of the Trump administration’s policies at the UN on Israel, North Korea, Russia and Syria.
As per CNN, Haley has often attempted to walk a fine line between allying with Trump and distancing herself enough to appeal to his more moderate critics. She left the Trump administration in 2018 on good terms with the then-president – a marked contrast from other former Trump officials who have publicly fallen out with their onetime boss.
Then in April 2021, Haley had said that she would not run for President in 2024 if Donald Trump does, but she has decided to change her decision ultimately.
