Nikki Haley’s campaign strategy, and possibly her only hope to win the Republican presidential nomination, has been to claim a lane as a moderate who could put together a coalition of GOP voters disgusted by Donald Trump. She was portrayed as “providing a moderate alternative to the ex-president” from the moment she threw her hat in the ring, and even as the race has tightened, she’s been painted as a “sane, rational Republican” who’s “stuck in the moderate lane” and “the last GOP moderate in the race.”

Struggling to catch up to Trump, Haley herself has chafed at this label, insisting that if you look at her record, you’d see that she’s a “hard-core conservative.” The thing is, she’s right.

I recently chronicled Haley’s lengthy record as a pitiless zealot for austerity who balanced budgets on the backs of the poor and workers while throwing money at big business. But maybe she’s one of those “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” politicians, you might say, someone who, if you’re in a state with an open primary like South Carolina, you could vote for holding your nose because she at least doesn’t sink to the retrograde cruelty of someone like Trump or also-ran Ron DeSantis.