It's Election Day in Arkansas. So if you get a phone call from someone sounding like President Biden or former President Trump telling you one party or the other moved its primary to Thursday or next month, ignore it.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, we're told, potential voters in New Hampshire got phone calls earlier this political season that sounded just like Biden. The voice informed Democrats they should not vote in the state's primary. Neat trick, huh?
It is a fact that both Democratic and Republican parties in Arkansas are holding their primaries today. Voters are also able to cast ballots in a number of judicial elections in which candidates are not designated as Republican or Democrat. One's party, after all, doesn't have anything to do with whether one makes a good judge or prosecutor. Whether they can wisely interpret and enforce the law matters.
If someone tells you something different, something that might disrupt your casting of a vote, it's best to make a quick call to your county election commission (every county has one) or to the Arkansas Secretary of State's Office, which has state-level responsibility for carrying out elections.
Today is informally called Super Tuesday because 16 states are scheduled to hold primaries, not as a result of any particular candidates who appear on the ballot. Indeed, there are a lot of descriptions for the voters' choices today, but voters don't seem to feel super about any of them.
Of course, it's a presidential election year, with all the drama that entails. And thanks to the presence of Donald Trump in the Republican Primary, this one packs more drama than a lot of elections. We're not about to declare what talking heads say about every presidential election -- that it's the most consequential ever -- but the choice of the man or woman who leads this country ought to matter a great deal to all Americans.
As the situation stands today, Nikki Haley stand is the better choice for the GOP nomination. It's not just because she's not Donald Trump. First, the basic fact: She's 52 years old, giving the nation a chance to move away from two candidates who have presented voters with ample evidence their ages and mental states will not be strengths undergirding the next presidential term.
Haley has an outstanding record of public service, including as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Trump's first term. As South Carolina's governor from 2011 to 2017, Haley has served as a chief executive capable of advancing good public policy and having a chance to work with members of Congress to make progress on a conservative and practical agenda. Because of her service at the state level, Haley is far more likely to understand and connect with the mood and concerns of average Americans than a man who has been in Washington, D.C., politics since 1972 or a self-declared billionaire who demonstrates little more than a thirst for money and power and has no idea how most Americans live their lives.
Yes, it must be acknowledged that Trump is coasting through the GOP primary system. But he's done so with a huge portion of GOP voters wanting someone other than him (Haley's earned 40% or better in three of the five primaries so far). People who have made their minds up to vote for Trump can't be persuaded otherwise. Even they will spend a lot of time and energy in the next four years, if Trump is elected, cringing at the way he goes about representing the United States of America. The nation deserves better leadership.
Nikki Haley will be in a position to alter the course of the nation by providing strong, well-reasoned and less emotion-driven leadership in a world that needs it. Americans won't have to spend the next four years apologizing for its leadership from the White House.
Come November, which is the election that really counts, Haley will be in a good position to defeat Biden as the nation steers away from the tumult-filled life of Donald Trump, with his business-related litigation and his defense against criminal charges. The nation won't face the prospect of a president who got away with something only because he was granted the power to pardon himself or to steer clear of the administration of justice.
So yes, a part of our support for Haley is that she's NOT Donald Trump. That ought to mean something to Republican voters. It means Arkansans have an option for someone who didn't have anything to do with encouraging a mob to descend upon the U.S. Capitol precisely when lawmakers were fulfilling their constitutional duty to affirm the Electoral College votes for president. They can pick someone who recognizes Trump wanted and demanded his vice president to undermine the legal succession of the people's choice for the next president of the United States. If it had been Donald Trump the people chose in 2020, Trump would have praised the election results. But because he lost, Trump longed for a path to thwart his departure from the White House. If he is somehow returned, he has promised a second term of vindictive pursuits against his enemies. U.S. voters deserve a president working toward their interests, not focusing the powers of the presidency on punishing those he perceives as disloyal.
It's not naivete to hope for better for the country. It's perhaps likely that at the end of Super Tuesday, Arkansas Republicans will have followed their colleagues in other primaries and caucuses, but wouldn't it be nice to see a GOP willing to embrace the nation's best interests by giving support to someone more likely to succeed in November and less likely to create a four-year Republican train wreck?
Arkansas and the other states voting today could embrace the opportunity to set the United States on a better course than either Biden or Trump has to offer. Conventional wisdom is that the nation will end up picking in November between the two choices nobody really wants.
Nikki Haley could spoil the 2024 election for both Biden and Trump, but it's got to start first with Trump. Today.
Voting ought not be driven just by what feels good; the choice should focus on giving the United States a president worthy of the nation's pride.