Nikki Haley, Republican governor of South Carolina, has been nominated by Donald Trump as ambassador to the UN. She would replace Samantha Power as the only woman among the UN security council’s 15 members.
44 year-old Haley, a vocal critic of the Trump administration, may owe her new nomination to the president-elect’s desire to keep his enemies close—albeit in places where they can’t bother him too much. But Haley owes her career, or at least the decision to enter public office, to Hillary Clinton.
Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, recounted the story of how hearing Clinton speak at a leadership institute in 2003 inspired her to enter public service to the New York Times’ India Ink blog:
In her 2012 memoir, Can’t is Not an Option, Haley—the youngest governor in the country and the first from a minority group to be elected in South Carolina—discussed the role of women in politics, and how she bonded with Sarah Palin over the difficulties they both faced in office. She also said that the reason why so few women are in politics is because women are dissuaded from running for public office in the first place.