I first became suspicious of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley when Mitt Romney came to South Carolina and serenaded her with "Happy Birthday to You" while Nikki stood there blushing and preening, like a teenager on a first date. Not knowing very much about her politics, I didn't think anything more of it, until yesterday, when Haley attacked Donald Trump.

I attack Donald Trump too, but in a good way, raising the inconsistencies of his record. Haley, on the other hand, attacks him from the left for being too tough on illegal aliens and falsely claiming that Trump is against all immigrants.

“Every time someone criticizes him, he goes and makes a political attack back,” Haley said when asked about Trump during an appearance at the National Press Club. “That’s not who we are as Republicans. That’s not what we do.”

Republicans don't respond to political attacks? That's not what Republicans do? Well, it's true enough, Romney didn't respond when Obama attacked him. Perhaps that's something that Republicans should do.

“Republicans need to remember that the fabric of America came from these legal immigrants,” she said. “If you want to talk about tackling illegal immigration, then let’s talk about it, but we don’t need to attack so many millions of people who came here . . . and did it the right way, like my parents.”

Trump has not attacked legal immigrants; this conflation of legal and illegal immigrants is an argument made by leftists, and Jeb Bush, to portray Trump as anti-legal immigration.

Haley wasn’t finished. “Why are you going all the way to this side and talking about birthright citizenship when you haven’t even talked about illegal immigration itself?” she asked. “Are you as a candidate going to commit to putting troops along the border?” She also cited the high cost of drones, planes, and detention and deportation capabilities, which would be needed. Concluded the governor: “Don’t say you’re just going to build a wall, because a wall’s not going to do it.”

Haley makes her position pretty clear on border security and illegal immigration. She supports birthright citizenship, and is against a border wall. She's worried about "high costs", but only when it comes to border security. In other words, she has aligned herself with the establishment Republicans, like Jeb Bush and her state's own Lindsey Graham.
Sadly enough, she is much talked about as a VP pick, because she is (a) a woman and (b) a minority. I wish we could get past these kind of calculations and just pick the best person for the job. I know this may sound radical, but I'd even go so far as to vote for a white man, if he were a constitutional conservative.

This article was produced by NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.