Mia Butler Garrick and James Smith urge Nikki Haley to come home. That blinding light is emanating from the direction of the governor's vacant office.
Alleging that she is now entering her third week of absence from the state for political purposes, Reps. James Smith and Mia Butler Garrick, both Richland County Democrats, stood outside Nikki Haley’s office this afternoon and asked her to return and do the job she was ostensibly elected to do.
Among the points the two representatives made about the gov:
- The state’s unemployment rate is climbing.
- Her trips have been purely political.
- Her activities don’t even have anything to do with South Carolina politics, but are purely national.
- She isn’t really benefiting Mitt Romney doing this, but merely herself.
- They fully understand that a governor would go to her own convention, just as SC Democrats are now flocking to Charlotte — but she doesn’t have to spend the week attending theirs as well.
- No other full-time state employee — a teacher, say, or a DHEC worker — would be able to take such a purely personal extended vacation, at least not without being fired.
- It is unclear who is paying for her junkets.
I had not realized that the gov was planning on spending all of this week out of town as well. For that matter, I had not known she stayed in Tampa after her speech, but that would be par for the course.
It’s also far from unprecedented for a governor to visit the opposing party’s national convention, when it is in a neighboring state. I remember seeing Carroll Campbell at the DNC — the one Don Fowler ran — in Atlanta in 1988. (It was kind of a hoot because Campbell — or maybe his press guy Tucker Eskew; I forget — noted that he didn’t bring with him nearly the extensive security retinue that Lt. Gov. Nick Theodore had with him there all week, complete with a command post set up on the ground floor in the delegation’s hotel.)
It’s a very tacky partisan practice, this business of trying to spoil the other side’s celebration — I’ve thought so ever since I saw Campbell do it — but it’s certainly not unusual.
But, noted Mia and James, Nikki is spending the whole week up there for the “counter-convention,” doing various national media interviews, with her schedule for the week showing her having no scheduled events here.
That’s hardly fair to the governor, I pointed out. If practically the entire retinue of national political media — Nikki Haley’s constituency, the people who elected her — are just up the road in Charlotte, how could anyone expect her to stay down in Columbia? After all, anyone who voted for her expecting her to do anything other than just what she is doing at this moment was sadly deluded.
Precisely, said Rep. Smith.
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Those Democrats certainly have a nerve picking on Nikki for neglecting her duties, because obviously she has none. Her calendar on her website is entirely empty for the month of September. Since she has nothing to do, why would they want to begrudge the nation’s least mature — I mean, YOUNGEST — governor a little fun?
The state might fare better if we could get her to stay out of state.
Yes, absolutely. Thank you for sticking up for our governor.
Perhaps, someone should put SC Governot Nikki Haley’s face on a milk carton.
Karen beat me to it.
Democrats want her back because she provides constant fodder for them.
I thought most South Carolinians were praying that she never comes back. Let Nikki enjoy her middle school antics in North Carolina. She doesn’t get to have as much fun as she did before she became Empress, uh governor.
A few weeks back, I was exchanging Twitter direct messages with a longtime member of the SC MSM, and at one point my correspondent referred to “HE.”
I asked who that was. I was told it referred to our governor, as in, “Her Excellency.” I don’t know how widespread that usage is…
HE. Or as Buzz calls her, She Who Must Not Be Questioned…..
So it that a typo up there where it says “the state’s employment rate is climbing.” I thought for a minute you meant Smith and Butler were trying to point out good things happen when she is away.
It’s interesting she has no events scheduled.
Begs the question, “Should she be paid for September?”
I know plenty of teachers who’d change places with her right now.
You’re welcome, Brad. Anything I can do to support our Fearless Leader.
Yes, Scout — UNemployment. Thank you.