Nation needs ‘bad-ass’ Republican woman in White House, Haley says
‘She could catch fire,’ leading Iowa GOP figure says
URBANDALE
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley earned sustained applause and polite plaudits in an Urbandale event Monday night heavy on policy, a departure from the cultural fury that has defined many GOP events in the Trump era.
Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and the United Nations ambassador during the administration of President Donald Trump, said she supports merit-based immigration reform, thinks the United States is wasting billions of dollars on foreign aid, wants to see term limits, advocates competency tests for elected officials over 75 and argues that kids are taught sex education too early in public schools.
“We need to send a bad-ass Republican woman to White House,” Haley said.
Moments into a question-and-answer session at Royal Flooring, just west of the interstate, with about 400 mostly Republican faithful in attendance, Haley fielded the big question in the room: Why should Iowa Republicans support her over Trump, who remains the runaway frontrunner in polls?
“I don’t think you have to be 80 years old to be in Washington, D.C.,” said the 51-year-old Haley, referencing Trump, who is 76 now and would become an octogenarian if elected to a second non-consecutive term.
The remarks drew laughter and no pushback from the audience, which ringed Haley on the home-furnishings showroom floor.
Frank Schuster, 67, of Ankeny, said Haley’s management of Trump questions worked..
“I liked a little bit about how she handled the Trump issue,” Schuster said in an interview just after posing for a selfie with Haley — one in which the candidate took the shot with his phone. “I think there are a lot of good alternatives.”
Schuster said he could see himself caucusing for Haley in a little less than a year.
Peggy Gillespie, 67, of Urbandale, said Haley has experience and values. She’s on board as a supporter already.
“We are just good people here in the state of Iowa,” Gillespie said. “She is just down to earth. She just has the good, standard Iowa values that we need.”
Haley said many American universities and colleges don’t have the values that sustained the nation. They are incubators of liberalism, she said, citing her own son’s experience.
“He’s having to write papers he doesn’t believe in just to get an ‘A,’” Haley said.
Haley, an Indian-American who grew up in the rural South, said the United States is not a racist nation.
“You’ve got all this woke ideology that left the universities and now is in the elementary schools,” Haley said. “You’ve got critical race theory where if you have a 5-year-old girl going into kindergarten, and she’s white, you’re telling her she’s bad, and if she’s brown or black, you’re telling her she’ll never be good enough and she’ll always be a victim. That’s abusive.”
A daughter of immigrants, Haley said the United States should move from so-called chain-migration, which is based on family ties, to merit-based immigration.
“I think we look and say, ‘what does our country need?’” Haley said, noting that manufacturing plants in South Carolina need managers, for example.
What’s more, it makes no sense to educate foreign students in the United States and send them home, she said.
“To me, that’s where it is,” Haley said.
Former Iowa Republican Party Chairman David Oman said Haley made a strong first impression — and earned an advantage by holding one of the first larger presidential caucus events in Iowa.
“She has to come back and come back and come back and keep doing what she did tonight,” Oman said.
Beyond that, Oman said Haley brings a one-two-punch with a background as a governor and United Nations Ambassador.
“I had a pretty favorable view of her walking in the door,” Oman said. “She exceeded most everybody’s expectations. She really knows who she is. She exudes reality. She’s got high energy.”
“She could catch fire,” Oman said.
If you haven’t already, check out some of the other Iowa Writers’ Collaborative columnists:
Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights
Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll
Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines
Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake
Suzanna de Baca Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley
Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County
Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji
Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames
Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines
Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla
Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines
Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo
Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey
Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa
Kurt Meyer, Showing Up, St. Ansgar
Kyle Munson, Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines
Jane Nguyen, The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines
John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines
Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines
Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politic Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.
Macey Spensley: The Midwest Creative, Iowa
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona
Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County
Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport
Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines
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