Former Bush speechwriter Ari Fleischer said that Nikki Haley’s speech following a second-place finish in the South Carolina primary sounded like a “No Labels speech” to him.
ARI FLEISCHER: I’ve been around a lot of these candidate speeches, I’ve written a few. That was a “No Labels” speech tonight by Nikki Haley. That was a speech, when she says, “No matter what I am running.” When she trashes Joe Biden, trashes Donald Trump, she is setting herself up to run down the middle.
And look what happened in South Carolina tonight, she won according to the Fox voter analysis independent voters by 19 percentage points. That is only 7% of the people who voted in the primary which is why she got her clock cleaned in the primary by Donald Trump. But when you look at independent voters, she sees a huge group out there. And when you look at the country independent voters are 43% of the country, Republicans are 27%, Democrats are 27%.
So she is looking ahead and seeing a swath down the middle that does not like Biden, does not like Trump. I can just feel it, I watched it, my reaction was immediate, she is declaring. Why wouldn’t she drop out of the race? She sees herself on the runway to something new. When you see yourself on the runway, you don’t pull your plane off the runway, you get ready to take off.
https://twitter.com/AriFleischer/status/1761575272254460041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
via joemiller