Republican presidential candidates are diving back into campaigning with time running out to show they can answer the critical question of the 2024 primary race — whether they have a chance of taking down Donald Trump.
The closing days before voting starts in Iowa on January 15 are also underscoring Trump’s quintessential strength as the dominant figure in the GOP. The former president has long crushed the rules of campaigning and decorum and stirs scandal and outrage that would fell any normal candidate. An attempt to overturn American democracy in 2020 to stay in power after losing an election, racially questionable social media posts and comments and recent rhetoric reminiscent of Nazi propaganda has done little to dim his appeal to grassroots primary voters.
But the contest has reached the point where any comment, incident or perceived flub by a candidate can distract from their closing argument and bring intense national scrutiny that can be used by their opponents to damaging effect.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley confronted this reality as soon as she stepped back onto the trail after the Christmas break Wednesday night, as she walked into a controversy over slavery that reignited one of the most contentious chapters of her record.
Haley, who would prefer headlines to be about her surge in New Hampshire that could give her a platform to compete directly with Trump, gave an equivocating answer when an attendee asked her in a town hall event what caused the Civil War – and she didn’t even mention the slavery, the historic curse that tore the nation apart. It shouldn’t have been that difficult to bat that question away, but Haley gave a waffling answer that touched on states’ rights and the freedom of individuals not to be dictated to by governments.
“Don’t come with an easy question,” Haley said in a town hall event in New Hampshire.
“I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do,” Haley said.
The questioner wasn’t satisfied with the answer, saying, “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word ‘slavery.’”
On Thursday morning, Haley sought to clarify her comments and said, “Of course the Civil War was about slavery.”
“We know that that’s, that’s the easy part of it. What I was saying was, what does it mean to us today? What it means that today is about freedom. That’s what that was all about. It was about individual freedom. It was about economic freedom. It was about individual rights. Our goal is to make sure no, we never go back to the state of slavery,” Haley said in an interview with radio host Jack Heath.
