Comets have staying power because they orbit the sun, while shooting
stars burn up as they crash through the Earth’s atmosphere.

The early take on Nikki Haley, who made her GOP presidential primary
debut yesterday with a speech in Charleston, S.C., is that she’s more
likely to shine brightly for a moment and then fall to Earth.

“[H]ers will be a highly conventional campaign,” wrote Rich Lowry after
watching her announcement video, and “there will be a number of other
candidates with as strong or a stronger case to represent generational
change.”

In a pretty brutal editorial this morning, the Wall Street Journal says
there is “no clear rationale for her candidacy.”

Over at the Times, they assembled 10 pundits to assess Haley’s
candidacy, and the majority opinion was that the two-term governor and
former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations shouldn’t be taken very
seriously. “Nikki Haley Will Not Be the Next President,” reads the
headline.

We are old enough to remember when pundits in 2015 declared that Donald
Trump would never be president, and we can recall nights in Iowa, New
Hampshire and Nevada in late 2019 and early 2020 when the same was said
about Joe Biden. 

Haley acknowledged the low expectations set by the nattering nabobs.
“I’ve been underestimated before,” she said. She entered politics in
2004 by defeating South Carolina’s longest-serving House member. In
2010, she leapt from the statehouse to the governor’s mansion after
defeating a field of seasoned politicians in a GOP primary and
overcoming her close association with disgraced Gov. Mark Sanford.

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Raghu Manavalan is the host and senior editor of POLITICO's Playbook
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