Nikki Haley giving a speech on her campaign trail / X/@NikkiHaley

In a United States Presidential Primary season , when candidates from the same party square off to determine who will face the opposing party candidate in the main election, it is often difficult to distinguish one candidate from another.  In an attempt to gain voters, and thus leverage an increase of political power, party narratives are often pressed, party agendas are repeatedly pushed, and party rhetoric is always preached.
    
Candidates who show a level of fortitude to venture outside of these ideological boundaries, even for all the right reasons, are often spurned by voters for failing to hold the party line, and, worse, are sometimes seen as political defectors to the cause.  This has not been a good development in our country and, ultimately, has resulted in a level of divisiveness that grows worse with each passing year.

Today we are less than a year away from the Presidential General Election of 2024 and, while much still remains unclear, there are some certainties.  For one, given the recent and persistent low approval ratings of the current administration, the republican primary becomes significantly more important from the standpoint of producing a genuine challenger to an incumbent president.  

For another, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need someone who will prioritize the widening gap of our social divide, or we risk reentering the drowning partisan waters of years past.  The United States has been through some divided times, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Civil Rights and Vietnam to name a few, but we have always been able to rely upon (what Abraham Lincoln referred to as ) “the better angels of our nature” to help us through.

The men who played a lead role in uniting us during these times of turmoil are the names of historical legend, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Ulysses S. Grant.  Today, the United States stands at a crossroads, and the decisions we make may well will ripple for generations.  Identifying our next “better angel” has proven to be quite a difficult task over the last several election cycles, but our desire to find a true leader capable of uniting a divided country remains strong.  And our people remain hopeful because, on the horizon, a new day is dawning.

I have known Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2017-2018) and South Carolina Governor (2011-2017), for more than fifteen years, and I can unequivocally declare that she may well be the community catalyst that our people need.

Once considered a longshot, after three primary debates Ambassador Haley is not only still standing, but is rapidly climbing in the polling charts.  Voters seem to be captivated by her capacity to take a bold and courageous stance against the poor decisions made by her own party, as she did in the first republican primary debate when pointing out the hypocrisy of her own party demanding a stop to the astronomical spending of the Democratic Party, when in fact, the $2.2 trillion COVID stimulus bill was likewise passed by the Republicans.

With each successive debate, Ambassador Haley appears to be that leader we are so desperately seeking.  A candidate that brings a commonsense approach to both managing and leading the country, with far more foreign policy experience than her opponents and a platform of initiatives that many voters from both parties have been demanding for years, including congressional term limits, cognitive testing of elected officials after a certain age, and suspension of salaries until a reasonable budget is approved.

The fact is that in the United States today political compromise is about as rare as a snowflake in the Sahara.  Because compromise always requires a level of sacrifice that so few politicians are willing to make, even if it is for the benefit of their constituency and for the country as a whole.  Yet we seem to keep electing these cookie-cutter officials who would rather remain divided in the House and Senate Chambers, than have the audacity to collaborate with someone across the aisle.  In other words, officials who have no chance of ever becoming one of our better angels.

Ambassador Haley is different and, make no mistake about it, this is a very good thing for the United States.  She has a proven ability to unite a group of diverse individuals for the good of the whole and she clearly recognizes the accomplishments that can be realized when value is placed on the collective success and not on individual achievement.  She has proven to be a selfless leader and, frankly, that is exactly what we need right now.

• Arun Agarwal is a Dallas businessman with a high profile in civic engagement