Subject: Re: Trump vs Haley: Gloves Off
Option 1: spend the next month in South Carolina holding town hall meetings to explain to anyone and everyone who'll listen that preserving democracy is more important bending the knee to Trump, a man who is unworthy of the presidency, a hate-filled, Hitler-quoting, top secret documents stealing, insurrection inciting, fake electoral vote peddling, defaming and defrauding incoherent rapist, thereby ending her campaign by doing her part to keep a dictator out of the White House.

I mean, she certainly can do that. But it's almost certainly futile. The electorate that will be voting in the upcoming primary has already rejected those premises (for the most part). They don't believe Trump is a danger to democracy, they don't believe he's unworthy of the Presidency, and they don't believe he is (or will be) a dictator. There's no audience for that message in the overwhelming majority of South Carolinians who currently support Trump, and no one's showing up to her town halls that isn't already in the minority of Republicans that already believe that. Trump's choice to skip all the debates turned out to be a great call for him - none of the participating candidates were elevated, and now he is in perfect position to simply declare himself the presumptive nominee and all-but-ignore Haley except to deride her. She's not going to get him on a debate stage, so she's never going to get a chance to present her message to his voters for cheap.

There's no shortage of people who can (and do) say those things about Trump in the world. Remaining a candidate isn't necessary for Haley to keep saying those things, if she wants - and it no longer gets her much of an audience. The real question is whether remaining a candidate will accomplish anything. It might put her in a position to take the nomination if Trump drops out of the race in the next two months. Other than that, it's somewhat pointless - because Haley won't be the nominee even if he drops out if it's after mid-March or so.