Despite conventional wisdom, this nation is not necessarily destined to inaugurate either Joe Biden or Donald Trump as president next Jan. 20. The Republican nomination battle really isn’t over. And an independent candidate really could win the general election.

For now, let’s examine why former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has a real chance to win the Republican nod, even though such a result admittedly isn’t likely. The model for her is Ronald Reagan’s uphill campaign to wrest the 1976 nomination away from incumbent President Gerald Ford. Then, it took many dozens of invitations to individual delegates to attend Oval Office meetings with the president, along with a series of barely legal promises of “consideration” for pet projects and causes, for Ford to win the nomination by just a handful of the 2,258 conventional delegate votes.