She’s not going to listen to this. Conway isn’t in the same party as Haley. This might as well be Yang, Manchin, or Biden giving her advice on how to run her campaign. Even if it is good advice.
The one consistent theme in all the “Not Trump” GOP candidates is that all of them are pretending they’re in some old normal world of campaigning. Where it’s a spirited contest between people who basically have the same policy goals but slightly different nuanced takes on which is more important or exactly how to achieve them. In that frame, they all think if/when they lose they can be a part of the administration the winner creates.
This is where all the concession and endorsements come from, looking to find their place in the eventual administration if their party wins even though it will not be them.
Except none of that is true for Trump. All of them mean nothing to Trump and no amount of groveling is going to repair that. His voters would never accept any of them. To those voters, Haley is in a different party. Clearly if she was in the real GOP she would just support Trump and be done.
The fantasy that there is one GOP is just a myth now. It’s the same reason the GOP House majority cannot do anything. It’s not really a majority, it’s a coalition of two minorities to create a majority and they don’t agree on much beyond the letters GOP.
Maybe she’s finally wising up, but I suspect not - even that she phrased in a way as if she wasn’t casting aspersions on his mental competence really. I doubt she’ll double down on it the way she needs to.
She’s playing at the edges. It’s not a real challenge. Someone that could be embarrassed, felt shame, or even accepted reality instead of creating their own, maybe that would work.
It’s not a real attack like you would see between a GOP and DEM candidate. To beat Trump, that’s the only option. It’s certainly how he is going to attack everyone else, no matter who they are.
It’s an asymmetrical primary, he is running with completely different rules. Just like the campaigning differences between the DEM and GOP candidates are asymmetrical. Same mechanics, pushed one level down. She will use something reasonable and true that should disqualify him. He’ll counter with something made up and insane but with some small nugget of truth at the root. The two will be treated as equivalent. She’ll try to explain away and rationalize the truth nugget while ignoring the insane and this will all be lost to everyone. He’ll just ignore what she said as if it didn’t happen and doesn’t matter.
The Biden campaign should prepare and expect this. Develop a plan for countering it. They know it’s coming and they know the media in the name of balance will treat the two as equivalent.
