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In Nikki Haley's Candied World, Even Losing Is Winning—For Now

Charleston on Saturday was a very different place from Rock Hill, where Donald Trump had held his election rally the day before. It was genteel and chic, palm trees swaying over the boutique stores and cocktail bars of the historic downtown, the gowned and suited guests at The Charleston Place hotel seemingly unconcerned with mundane matters like elections. On the second floor of the hotel, staffers for Nikki Haley, former governor of the state, Trump's appointee as ambassador to the United Nations in 2017, and now his only standing rival in the Republican Party, managed the press registration desk with brisk efficiency. Outside the Grand Ballroom, in a passageway that was all soft carpeting underfoot and bright chandeliers above, uniformed hotel staff set up tables of antipasti. At 7:00 p.M., Haley would appear in the Grand Ballroom to give a speech to a core group of her supporters.

But Charleston, for all its easygoing air and elegance, was disturbing for what lay just beneath the surface. A short walk away was Mother Emanuel, the oldest Black church in the South, burned down in 1822, with one of its co-founders hanged on charges of plotting a slave rebellion; and it was where, in 2015, a 21-year-old white supremacist called Dylann Roof killed nine worshippers with a Glock handgun. The ghosts of colonialism and the plantation lurked close by if one knew where to look, in the way almost every guest in the hotel appeared rich and white and almost every hotel worker was a person of color. Inside the Grand Ballroom, still mostly empty, a large television had been set to Fox News, the presenter hyperventilating. Migrants, carriers of germs and "bringers of death to the American people," were coming across the border in vast numbers. It was hard not to think of Roof, who had said, "You rape our women and you're taking over our country," before he opened fire.

At 7:00, the minute the polls closed, the networks declared the South Carolina primary in Trump's favor. Fifteen minutes later, a text came in from Trump's campaign, shouting "COMPLETE VICTORY!" The crowd in the ballroom appeared unfazed, their mood surprisingly upbeat as they swayed to honky-tonk and Southern rock, the loudest of them expensively dressed white women holding up signs saying "Women for Nikki." The single table of Haley swag managed by two preppy-looking young women received the occasional visitor marveling over a Margaret Thatcher T-shirt, but it was the cash bar next to it that remained particularly busy. There was none of the fractiousness of the Trump crowd. The people I was looking at were the old wealth of Charleston, and they conveyed a sense of moneyed ease and the confidence that they could never lose, no matter the outcome of a particular election.

Haley appeared at 8:30, with straight hair and red dress and blindingly white teeth. Trump at the Winthrop Coliseum had been gladiatorial, and Haley stayed true to the role demanded by the Grand Ballroom. Her first words were drowned out, but the next ones were clear enough. She was thanking her family, her husband, her kids, her mother, her in-laws, "God's strength and grace," "the good people of South Carolina," "our sweet state," "America's inherent goodness," "citizens of the greatest country in the history of humanity." The candied phrases dropped endlessly, were cheered enthusiastically, and the only interesting moment came when Haley declared that she was not dropping out of the presidential race in spite of Trump's victory.

The never-Trumpers I had spoken to in Columbia had been lukewarm about Haley, and this in spite of their desperate desire for an alternative Republican candidate. Will Folks, a libertarian blogger who served as press secretary for South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford—and who claimed in 2010 to have had an affair with Haley, something denied by Haley's office—explained to me that he was not going to endorse Haley. Although Folks had turned against Trump after endorsing him in 2016, he felt Haley to be all about "naked self-ambition" and "a puppet of the military-industrial complex."

Inside the Grand Ballroom, Haley appeared not a puppet as much as an actor playing the part of an ambitious striver in a Netflix show about U.S. Politics. She offered a little of something to almost everyone. Anti-Democrat signage and rhetoric was conspicuously absent, and the indications are that at least some of the votes she got in South Carolina were those of Democrats and independents. She was a moderate, a healer, and she would fight for "all of America," she claimed. She was offering a real choice, something other than "four more years of Biden's failure" and "four more years of Trump's lack of focus." She was a woman for women, a military spouse for the military, and the child of immigrants from India resolutely opposed to the "nine million illegals" with "enough fentanyl to kill every single American."

She spoke for 15 minutes and stayed about as long to mingle with the crowd. Among the Charleston rich, almost entirely white, there was a sprinkling of sleek Indian faces. I spoke to one of them, a suave gastroenterologist who described himself as an independent and who had known Haley from well before her entry into politics. He had voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, he said, and he had come to regret that. But Biden wasn't "all there," Kamala Harris was "useless," and it was Haley he now pinned his hopes on. The child of an Indian diplomat who had immigrated to the United States in 1989, he was utterly opposed to the open border and the "illegal aliens" crossing it with impunity. "We all came here legally," he said. That was a crucial distinction.

It made sense that the wealthy, upper-caste Indian elite would gravitate toward Haley. Born to affluent Sikh immigrants as Nimarata Nikki Randhawa, Haley has reinvented herself as a Southern white person. She is pro-military, pro-empire, pro-Israel, pro–Narendra Modi, pro-business, anti-union, and anti-abortion. The word "race" wasn't mentioned once in her speech, but that too was in keeping with her position that business is more important than confronting South Carolina's long, ongoing history of violence and immiseration against its Black population. Robert Greene II, an African American professor of history at Claflin University in Orangeburg, was present at the state capitol in Columbia on July 10, 2015, when, in the aftermath of Roof's massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church, the Confederate flag finally came down. Haley, Greene pointed out to me, had just the previous year—she was running for a second term as governor—said that the Confederate flag wasn't an issue since no business had complained about its presence at the state capitol.

Haley's rhetoric about America as a family similarly sidestepped all issues of significance. Her strategy in her bid for the White House is clear enough. She hopes that Trump will be convicted, that the legal issues swirling around him will prevent him for running for president, leaving her as the only viable Republican candidate. After that, in a dogfight against Joe Biden, she fancies her chances. Her campaign believes that she is excellent in televised debates and that her youthful vigor and girlboss persona will serve her well as she comes up against Biden's aging white masculinity. "And she can always run again," one of the Women for Nikki told me with a brilliant smile. "Can't say that for the other two." That is Haley's belief, at least for now—that her pliability will get her past Trump, and then again past Biden, that her capacity to ride change will make her the winner of the ultimate prize in these ever-changing times. All that stands between her plan and its flawless execution is the changeable nature of change itself, and the fact that fortune does not always reward the shallow and the unprincipled.

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Family Of 7-year-old Girl Killed In Sand Accident On Florida Beach Details Moment Hole Collapsed

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The family of 7-year-old Sloan Mattingly, an Indiana girl who died on a South Florida beach last week when a deep sand hole collapsed on her and her brother, has revealed new details about the tragic accident.

Sloan was digging a 5- to 6-feet deep hole with her 9-year-old brother Maddox in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea while on vacation with their family, when the sand hole suddenly caved in. Sloan was buried alive in the sand while Maddox was covered nearly up to his neck.

Sloan's uncle, Chris Sloan, detailed to KFOR-TV how the first-grader tried to grab up at her brother's leg during her final frantic moments after the collapse.

"Later we found out that after the sand had caved, she kept trying to grab up Maddox's leg to get up out of the sand, and eventually he couldn't feel her moving anymore," he said. "The sand had been up to his chest, and he was screaming for help, and a lot of people did come and help."

TRAGIC FLORIDA SAND HOLE DEATH COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED: EXPERT

Sloan Mattingly, 7, died when a sand hole collapsed on her and her brother. (Facebook/Jason Mattingly)

Dramatic video posted online showed several beachgoers frantically trying to dig through the sand and reach Sloan. They were trying to hold on to the walls of the hole, so it would not collapse further. The fire department said it used support boards to keep more sand from collapsing in as they used shovels to dig the children out.

The victim, identified as 7-year-old Sloan Mattingly by the Broward Sheriff's Office, was digging a 5- to 6-feet deep hole with her 9-year-old brother Maddox at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida, when the sand suddenly caved in on them. (WSVN)

Chris Sloan said that as far as the family knows, Sloan was found unresponsive at the scene.

Investigators on the beach in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida, take photos of the scene of a sand collapse on Tuesday. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Sloan was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital, while Maddox was in stable condition. 

GIRL BURIED ALIVE WHILE DIGGING SAND HOLE IN FLORIDA, BROTHER INJURED

The children's mother, Therese, addressed what she called a "freak accident" in a statement on a GoFundMe campaign set up for the family.

"We experienced the purest human being and we are forever changed by her," the mother's statement said. "We love you beyond any stretch of the imagination. Our sweet Sloan. What we would give."

A picture of a Polaroid image of Sloan Mattingly, 7. She died when a sand hole collapsed on her in Florida on Tuesday. (Facebook/Jason Mattingly)

Chris Sloan told the news outlet that the family hopes that sharing Sloan's story will prevent other families from experiencing this type of tragedy.

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"This is real. It's tragic. It's happened," he said. "We're working through it, and hopefully nothing like this ever happens to anyone else ever again."

Fox News' Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.

California Bungalow Brings Old World-Style Wine Tastings To West Coast

Jeff Durham and Joey Wolosz share home cooked food, stories and wine in a laid-back, comfortable ... [+] bungalow in Napa, California.

The Gentleman Farmer

An accordion rests in the foyer of the 1926 bungalow. A short walk from the Napa Valley Wine Train—a tourist draw that beckons travelers to career through the California wine country's vineyards by boxcar—the comfortable confines of Jeff Durham and Joey Wolosz's single story home welcome travelers to a different kind of journey through wine country.

At The Gentleman Farmer Bungalow, the flavors of this verdant land of rolling vineyards find their way from fields and pastures to pallets. And they do it through a pair of careful, considerate hosts that want travelers to know the stories in the walls of the historic home. The accordion? That belongs to Wolosz. When he's not building dishes like buckwheat blini, sourdough loaves and cassoulet in the home's centerpiece commercial kitchen, Wolosz can be found echoing the accordion around the Napa Valley. The firefighting tools on the shelves? Durham remembers his father lugging them around the valley as a kid.

At the bungalow, there's no set menu. The dishes are fresh, flavorful and handcrafted by the husbands who've weaved a life of hospitality from hoteliers to vintners and chefs. But the real treats are the conversations. They're tales from a renovated roadside motel in the redwood and fables from forays into kitchens and vineyards in France.

This is a place for thoughtful visitors to Napa to converse, a safe haven for the curious traveler hidden in plane sight—one that offers a more intimate perspective than the sprawling compounds of some of California's largest wineries located a stone's throw away. By peeling back the layers of a area often obscured by opulent tasting rooms and placing its flavors in the setting of a humble craftsman bungalow, the Napa Valley onion begins to taste a little sweeter.

A self-scribed manifesto sits on the bar overlooking this home's open kitchen. "To open the good stuff for no reason is the reason," it reads. "Take up the wire whisk. Choose the stone mortar and pestle. Use the seasoned cast-iron skillet."

"It's not a restaurant," says Wolosz, whirling around Durham between oven, sink and stovetop. "It's a wine tasting. We are here to showcase the wines, but I prefer to serve a little food as we do it. And, that might take a couple of hours."

Joey Wolosz prepares fresh food for a wine tasting at The Gentleman Farmer Bungalow in Napa, ... [+] California.

The Gentleman Farmer

Born from a five week, 50th-birthday retreat to Bordeaux, the Gentleman Farmer Bungalow is a monument to the love shared between Wolosz and Durham, as well as the losses experienced through decades of companionship. Lost family members are harbored in each pour. Laughter, joy and tears manifest through turns of a whisk and screws over cork.

"This is our story," says Wolosz, pointing out the extensive renovations required to bring a vintage craftsman home to life as a commercial wine tasting space. "There's a lot of people in this valley who have made money elsewhere and have come here to make wine, but our story is not one of those. We bootstrapped everything here. And we want to spend our days cooking food, sharing wine, and sitting around a table sharing our stories."

The wine with lunch tasting model is a familiar setting in Europe, where multi-course lunches cooked by vintner themselves offer guests more than a swirl and a spit. In some old world setting, home cooked meals are as much of an experience as the wine itself.

That's the model Wolosz and Durham have emulated in California, where six-course lunches derived from modified family recipes are accompanied by selections from the wine cellar. Think Chardonnay paid with buttery brioche, Gillette's and soufflés—all available to the public via tastings and ticketed events.

The couple has been producing critically acclaimed California wines since 2005, while eventually pulling double duty as the operators of the Redwood Riverwalk, a renovated Humboldt County motel that is still hinted at in the bungalow's "living room."

Though the husbands sold the motel in 2023—in part to pave way for the Bungalow—the former hoteliers are still forging connections in the hospitality world. To help bring travelers through the home's doors, Gentleman Farmer recently partnered with San Francisco-based Z Hotels to create a package partnering a one-night stay at Hotel Zelos, Hotel Zeppelin or Hotel Zetta with a homemade lunch for two and tasting.

The package means travelers visiting San Francisco for work or play can more easily access the relaxed atmosphere of Napa. And there may be no more relaxing environment than the bungalow.

"We aren't doing super precise wine parings, because that's not how you would do it at home anyway," explains Wolosz, pulling a Negroni, gin and sweet vermouth cake from the oven, paired with holiday shortbread and pickled kumquats—the perfect pairing for a brand new perspective on Napa.

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