COULD OUTSIDER JUST NICK THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PRIZE?
Posted on 9th December 2023
Such is the dark vista facing us over global affairs it is heartening to get even the glimmer of some good news. Is it possible that another real contender is emerging for the Republican nomination for President of the U.S. in the form of Nikki Haley, the former Governor of South Carolina and most pointedly Donald Trump’s former Ambassador to the U.N. Trump may well live to regret nick-naming her “birdbrain” which for starters doesn’t stack up with his sending her to the U.N in the first place. Most critically she is gaining in the polls showing well in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. What is really interesting is that the polls also show that if she was the Republican candidate, she would beat Joe Biden. Now we all know that presidential campaigns are extortionately expensive and in this respect, it looks like Haley is garnering the support of some major donors. She is said to have impressed both Charles Koch and Jamie Dimon, Chief Executive of J.P. Morgan Chase. If she can gather sufficient momentum, she could find herself in pole position and at 51 years of age has relative youth on her side. Combined with being a woman it could be a winning combination. I wonder if Biden would stay in the race if she was the Republican candidate. Perhaps not, as it seems his principal and noble objection is blocking Trump’s return to office.
What depressed me this week was seeing the red carpet rolled out for Vlad the Bad in the U.A.E. where he arrived to great fanfare flanked by 4 Russian Sukhoi 358 fighter jets. He was greeted by Abu Dhabi’s President as a “Dear Friend”, even though Putin is subject to an international arrest warrant for war crimes. At the end of the day, this is all about money. The Kremlin is desperate to fill its coffers to pay for the war. Unfortunately for the Ukrainians they have yet to make a decisive break-through. Although the current fighting is ferocious the war could currently best be described as a stalemate. War fatigue has set in and there is a danger of a blame game erupting. President Zelensky recently said “We didn’t get all the weapons we wanted. I can’t be satisfied”. Now Biden’s aid package to Ukraine amounting to $61 billion has been blocked in the senate, principally because of the position of immigration and the policing of the Mexican Border. I think it will eventually pass. We Europeans had better pray it does. Without it, Ukraine will collapse.
