Two lonely old rivals, reclusive spendthrifts, are marching towards a showdown that many people really wish wouldn’t happen. If this is the plot of a slapstick comedy, it’s also Nikki Haley’s latest jab at former President Donald J. Trump and President Biden as she struggles for oxygen ahead of the February 24 South Carolina Republican primary.
In a new series called “Grumpy Old Men,” Haley’s campaign on Wednesday plans to begin releasing online videos, digital ads and voter emails that will highlight the ways Ms. Haley has argued that her two front-runners party are the same. The episodes, with titles like “Stumbling Seniors,” “Basement Buddies” and “Profligate Pols,” touch on, among other things, her opponents’ signs of mental confusion, their light campaign presence and their economic policies that lead to high inflation .
The push is part of a shift in strategy that Ms. Haley began after the Iowa caucuses, viewing Mr. Trump, 77, and Mr. Biden, 81, as belonging to the same bygone era of politics, an era she says is deeply contrasted. with the needs of the country. It also follows her more aggressive stance toward Mr. Trump as the two come to a heated standoff in South Carolina, the state where she was born and raised and which she led as governor.
But the series, with its reference to a 1993 film, could prove to be a risky bet as it tries to appeal to a Republican base that is largely gray, white and Christian. Polls show her trailing the former president by double digits in her home state. Attacks on Mr. Biden’s age did not play well during the 2020 Democratic primaries.
Ms Haley, 52, who served as ambassador to the United Nations under Mr Trump, has consistently cast herself as a “new generation leader” for her party and called for mental capacity tests for candidates aged 75 and over. However, until recently, she had a cautious approach to both men and their age.
Her most vocal attacks on the issue have been against Mr. Biden, although she often tells her audience that she is disrespectful. “We all know 75-year-olds who can run circles around us,” he often says on the log, “and then we know Joe Biden.”
She was even less inclined to go after Mr Trump. She directly criticized him for being in a mental breakdown for the first time just this month after he appeared to mistake her for Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House. Days later, and hours after polls opened in the New Hampshire primary on January 23, he told reporters he believed he was “mentally fit” to be president. However, she has intensified her criticism of his intellectual acuity. Saturday in Mauldin, SC, he called his reaction to her New Hampshire dynamic “completely independent.”
“Nearly 50 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of Americans don’t want to see grumpy old people stumbling across America when our country is on the brink and the world is on fire,” campaign spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said. . in a statement. “Unfortunately, this version of grumpy old people provides no comic relief – just chaos, confusion and a bad sense of déjà vu for the American people.”
