The Odd Couple -- Trump and Haley

Is it too late for Donald to re-consider Nikki for VP?

This won’t be easy, but imagine, if you can, that Donald Trump is capable of putting his massive ego aside and is prepared to be gracious to a political opponent he doesn’t like — and one who, for good measure, doesn’t like him either. Unless you just emerged from a coma, you know we’re talking about the icy relationship between Trump and Nikki Haley.

Let’s imagine that he tells her that while they had their differences during the primary campaign, it’s time, for the sake of party unity, to put those differences in the rear-view mirror. Imagine if he could muster what it takes to praise her for her intelligence and apologize for calling her a birdbrain.

Now imagine if he asked her to be his vice presidential candidate, a conciliatory gesture that would go a long way in winning over her voters — and a lot of other moderate voters too, especially suburban women — and would certainly enhance his chances of winning in November.

But it’s not going to happen. Donald Trump is a man who holds grudges and doesn’t like anyone too close to him with strong, independent views. He prefers the kind of  people who, whether they really believe it or not, will go out on the campaign trail and enthusiastically tell voters how wonderful he is — and who, when asked, will either tap dance around the question of whether the 2020 election was rigged — or flat-out agree with Trump that it was. So, reaching out to Nikki Haley would be out of character for him. Way out of character.   

But last week Haley won 22 percent of the vote in Indiana’s GOP primary — even though she dropped out of the race two months ago. In one wealthy Indianapolis suburb, she did even better — winning 34 percent of the vote.

And the New York Times reports that, “Even out of the race, Ms. Haley has continued to pull in a significant number of voters in ongoing primary contests. Across the five swing states that have held primaries so far — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Nevada — a total of about 750,000 people cast ballots for Ms. Haley.” Those votes could be the difference between winning and losing in a close race.