Category Archives: Nikki Haley

“The Brad Show:” SC GOP Chairman Chad Connelly

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Welcome to another guerrilla edition (as in, shot by me out in the field rather than the studio) of “The Brad Show.”

Our guest today: Chad Connelly, the new chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party.

I spoke with Chad over at the party HQ this morning. Since this was my first sit-down with him, I wanted to cover the bases — ask him to talk a bit about his background, etc. So we did.

But the hot topic — and if you can’t wait to get to it, it starts at 4:15 on the clip — was Gov. Nikki Haley’s threatened veto of funding for the SC GOP presidential primary in January.

Some highlights of that discussion:

  • He said there will be a presidential primary here, “no matter what.”
  • He said presidential primaries are so important that next time the Democrats have one, he’d be the first to support their bid for similar funding.
  • Total cost is a million dollars. Or maybe 1.5 million.
  • He expects to speak with the governor about it, and try to impress upon her the importance of the funding, this week. He’ll also be talking with legislative leaders.
  • Can General Assembly override a veto? “Yes,” he said.

Enjoy the show. This one is actually a bit shorter than most, which I hope you will appreciate. I asked about as many question as usual, but Mr. Connelly is a very focused speaker, which I guess adds up since that is his profession. It’s not that his answers were so short. It’s just that he said what he had to say to answer me, and stopped. Not many people do that.

Why can’t we let her stay over there? No, really; what would be wrong with that?

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Notice how all of my posts the last couple of days are either about Dick Harpootlian or Jon Huntsman? What’s up with that?

Anyway, right when I got back from the Huntsman thing, Dick sends out this video. He’s big on videos. Well, he missed the mark on this one.

It makes two dubious points — the rather painfully populist one about how YOU, the taxpayer, paid for Nikki’s trip to Paris, and his point that the gov should come back and tend to South Carolina business, or as he put it, “the people of South Carolina would rather her worry more about the unemployment rate and the education sector in our state.”

Here are my thoughts on those, in reverse order:

  1. You really think that if she were here, she’d be doing anything for our schools? Anything at all?
  2. She is far more likely to stumble on something of economic use to our state, something to create jobs in SC, over there than she is here. I can far better see her charming some air industry exec who doesn’t know her very well (she makes a great first impression) than I can see her pursuing policies back here that boost our prosperity. After all, the one thing Mark Sanford accomplished in that sphere in 8 years was landing Boeing, and he did that, at least in part, by going to the air show.

B-minus?!?!?!? Well, that’s just so SC; we’re too polite to be honest

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Did you see this in The State today?

Legislators give Haley ‘B-‘ grade for first session

You’re kidding me, right? You want me to believe that the honest assessment of “legislators” is that Nikki Haley’s performance as governor is worthy of a B-minus? There’s just no way.

Yeah, I realize people who don’t know the State House, and who get their notions of such things from watching national TV news, will say, “That’s understandable — most of them are Republicans, right?” The majority of Republicans would seem to be the last people who would think Nikki Haley — or her predecessor — was worthy of a passing grade. Much less a B-minus. I mean — these people just sued her (successfully) for trying to boss them around. Or McConnell did, which amounts to the same thing. And that was not the low point of the relationship.

Yeah, I know how they are. It’s just the first session. At this point, they were trying to give Mark Sanford every chance, too.

But a grade — a grade isn’t supposed to be a tool of diplomacy, or an expression of future hopes (“Maybe she’ll get better…”)

A grade should be an honest assessment of actual performance. It should confront uncomfortable truths. An honest teacher says, “I know you’re trying hard, and nothing personal, but you flunked the course.”

But we don’t do that in South Carolina, do we? And it’s why we don’t move forward as a state; it’s why we lag behind. We’re so busy being polite and worrying about offending anyone that we never state the case, analyse the problem, and move to fix it.

We can be so pathetic.

I don’t even want to know how The State chose the lawmakers it interviewed. In any case, it was only 20 percent of the General Assembly. I wonder what an actual poll of the whole legislative branch, with secret ballots, would have produced. Probably something much closer to what The State‘s readership came up with. Yeah, the readers who responded were heavily Richland County. But that Democratic bias would have been balanced, in a real survey of the General Assembly, by the fact that those officeholders know her, which should make them just as likely to be negative as Democrats…

Making use of the “women are grownups” argument

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A couple of days back, in the midst of an argument about something else, I started griping about a piece I’d read somewhere by a feminist of the “men and women are just alike and don’t you dare say otherwise” variety (there are all sorts of feminism, and that is but one type), suggesting that there’s nothing to the idea that male politicians are inherently more likely to engage in sexual misbehavior than are female politicians.

I begged to differ, citing my oft-asserted belief that, in general, women are more likely than men to be actual grownups. To elaborate:

You know me; I hate Identity Politics. I don’t care whether our legislative bodies are all male, or all female, or all white or all black, as long as we get the best candidates (which we don’t, but don’t stop me; I’m on a roll). I’m not for electing women qua women. But there’s a side benefit apart from the IP one: Elect more women, you get more grownups.

Yes there are exceptions. And we could have a debate, if you’d like, about whether the problem with Nikki Haley is that she “governs like a guy.” But in general, the principle holds….

Well, I’m not the only one thinking that way. The Southern Institute for Women in Politics is pushing the same line:

Retrospective on scandal

Lessons learned from the likes of Anthony Weiner

Comedians will regret the loss of great material provided by Anthony Weiner’s denial and later admission of lewd electronic behavior. Weiner’s Congressional colleagues will be relieved by his resignation so they can return to business. But Weiner’s sad tale of self-destructive and testosterone-induced behavior is just one in a growing list of elected men (of both political parties) that tells a bigger story to tell: In 2011, U.S. politics is still a boys’ club.

When we’re all finished clucking our collective tongues, we need to get focused and recognize that this is a call to action for women – including women in South Carolina.

Research points to a substantial gender gap in the way women and men approach running for office. Women have different reasons for running, are more reluctant to do so and, because there are so few of them in politics, are acutely aware of the scrutiny they draw – all of which seems to lead to differences in the way they handle their jobs once elected.

“The shorthand of it is that women run for office to do something, and men run for office to be somebody,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “Women run because there is some public issue that they care about, some change they want to make, some issue that is a priority for them, and men tend to run for office because they see this as a career path.”

So, it’s time for more of us to step up to the plate.

Not everyone needs to be a candidate, but all women need to be more informed, more involved, in politics at every level. At a minimum, we need to vote – cast a ballot for everything from who runs our children’s schools to who sets the tax rate for our towns – have a say in who gets to make these decisions that affect our lives.

We desperately need good women to run for office. We can’t win the game unless you play, so come on ladies, let’s get moving.

How you can help clean the political house:

So, friends, let’s learn some lessons from Anthony Weiner (and Elliott Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc., etc., etc.) and make 2012 the year we run and elect more women to office in South Carolina than ever before.

Read news that directs our lessons

Weiner Scandal: A Victory for Women Leaders?
The mentality has to change. The world is half men and half women. The government has to >>

In political scandals, girls won’t be boys
“I’m telling you,” said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., “every time one of these sex scandals goes, we just look at each other, like>>

More Women Needed in Politics
The story of U.S. Rep. Anthony and his Weiner is more disappointing than surprising.Another male>>

Women are better investors, and here’s why
Call it the Weiner principle: men self-destruct. Anthony Weiner has put men in a pickle.Here’s why>>

How about Dan Adams’ new book?
Man Down: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else. Read more>>

Welcome to the team, girls. I mean, ladies. I mean — aw, I’d never make a good feminist anyway…

And I take exception to the beer taster thing.

Corey quotes me well in The Nation

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Several weeks back, Corey Hutchins of The Free Times called to say he was working on a profile of Nikki Haley for The Nation magazine. He wanted to talk with me about it, and asked if I’d meet him for a beer at Yesterday’s. He didn’t have to twist my arm. (Note the ad — be sure to check out Yesterday’s. Good food, good beer, good company, reasonable prices.)

So we met, and I said a bunch of stuff, and later I got a call from a fact-checker at The Nation, so I knew that the piece was coming out soon. (Yeah, just like in “Almost Famous.” To a newspaperman, the whole “fact-checker” thing is weird. If you’re going to have a staffer check all the facts, why not just send them to do the story to start with? But when you’re using freelance, which magazines do, I guess this is something you have to do to protect yourself. When a reporter works for you, it’s different. You can fire his butt if he tries to put one over on you, and he knows it.)

Anyway, Corey did a pretty good job. Personally, I don’t normally enjoy reading The Nation, but this was good. And he did an excellent job of extracting something intelligent-sounding from my ramblings:

Still, like so many Palmetto State chief executives before her, Haley seems to be angling for a spot on a national ticket. She is already penning her memoir. “Every governor we’ve had since Carroll Campbell has had national aspirations, but with her it’s more naked and obvious,” says Brad Warthen, a Columbia advertising man who until 2009 was the longtime editorial page editor of the State. Warthen endorsed Haley in two legislative elections and chronicled her rise beginning about seven years ago. In that time, he says, she has morphed from a naïve newcomer, to a politician he thought could become a good force in the legislature, to something approaching megalomania.

“I think she’s had her head turned by discovering where demagoguery will get you,” Warthen told me. “I don’t think that’s totally who she was before. I think she has developed in this direction. It’s a B.F. Skinner behavioral reinforcement thing; she has been rewarded and rewarded and rewarded. This has worked for her. And she continues to charm the national media. Because you know what? They don’t care. It’s just a story.”…

You see what just happened? Yep. For the first time ever, after a 35-year career in newspapers, I was just identified in a national magazine as an “advertising man.” Move over, Don Draper. You’re about to be replaced in the national imagination.

There were other good bits. Such as this, the result of an interview with John Rainey:

But Haley has been navigating a series of land mines—IRS disputes, questionable business deals and appointments, multiple adultery allegations—any one of which threatens to blow up her political career. “I believe she is the most corrupt person to occupy the governor’s mansion since Reconstruction,” declared John Rainey, a longtime Republican fundraiser and power broker who chaired the state’s Board of Economic Advisers for eight years. A 69-year-old attorney, Rainey is an aristocratic iconoclast who never bought the Haley myth. “I do not know of any person who ran for governor in my lifetime with as many charges against him or her as she has had that went unanswered,” he told me on a recent afternoon at his sprawling horse farm outside the small town of Camden. “The Democrats got Alvin Greene; we got Nikki Haley. Because nobody bothered to check these guys out.”

OK, so John was way more provocative than I was. But I think I sounded more erudite.

It’s worth a read.

Drat! Foiled again! Curse you, Snidely Obama!

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I was WAY busy last night with real-life stuff until about 1:30 a.m. (just wait until YOU have five kids and four grandchildren and everybody’s coming and going and having to be picked up at the airport in the middle of the night), and barely found time to watch some of that presidential debate. I didn’t even have time to think about Nikki Haley’s national TV appearance. Good thing, too.

I did glance at the coverage of it on CBS, and even managed to read on a bit after the horrible shock of the opening words:

Four of the biggest names in the Republican Party – Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Rep. Allen West of Florida, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahom…a

Really. “Biggest names.” Take THAT, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Jeb Bush… I could go on, but what does it matter? They’re nobodies! The peanut gallery is taking over!

It is just absolutely stunning how little one has to accomplish to be one of the “biggest” these days. In fact, in the GOP, accomplishing anything actually counts against you. Look at Romney and health care.

Of course, Nikki Haley is about as accomplishment-free as anyone can get, and by the new standards, that makes her golden. Of course, she likes us to think that she wants to accomplish stuff, but that uncontrollable forces prevent her.

What, you ask, has kept our gov free of the blemish of achievement? Could it be that she lacks good ideas? Could it be that she is clueless when it comes to working with other people who would have to be involved in making these things happen, such as the Republican leadership of the General Assembly? Could it be because of her inept, ham-handed approach to everything from USC trustee appointments to her own tax returns?

No, it’s none of that. There’s another villain, one that no rational person would have suspected in a million years:

Haley went on to say that “everything I’ve tried to do to govern in South Carolina has been stopped by President Obama,”…

Yep, it’s her favorite Snidely Whiplash, the guy she ran so hard against in her election last year (Vincent Sheheen? Who’s he?). He is still foiling her beautiful plans! Curses!

In case you didn’t notice, the Legislature is NOT in session today…

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Having a busy workday today, and don’t really have time a lot of time to dwell on the SC Supreme Court’s sensible decision in stopping Nikki Haley from violating the separation of powers. The salient part:

Chief Justice Jean Toal and justices Donald Beatty and Kaye Hearn voted to block Haley’s order to call lawmakers back at 10 a.m. Tuesday, writing that the General Assembly “has not adjourned … and, therefore, is still in its annual session. Under these specific facts, respondent (Gov. Nikki Haley) cannot convene an ‘extra’ session of the General Assembly since it is currently in session. To do so would interrupt the annual session and would violate the General Assembly’s authority to set its calendar and agenda and would constitute a violation of the separation of powers provision.”

That was the thing. My good friend Kevin Hall (the governor’s attorney) had stated rather forcefully that the governor has the authority to call back lawmakers. Yeah. But she can’t call them BACK when they’re still in session (although in recess), and already have a defined agenda, and tell them have a whole other session in the middle of this one, and use it to do what I want. As I’ve said before, I am for having a much stronger governor in South Carolina (which is why I agree with the gov on three of the four things she wants). But I want a chief executive with more power to run the executive branch, not dictate legislative matters to a coequal branch.

A perceptive friend who doesn’t follow this stuff as obsessively as I do said, after reading The State‘s story, that Glenn McConnell doesn’t seem to think much of the governor. Well, to be fair, Glenn McConnell doesn’t think much of any governor, although they’re all right in his book as long as they know their place.

After saying in his courtly way that he would be happy to support amending the agenda when lawmakers come back as planned so as to allow them to take up the matters that concern the governor, he said this:

“I support the bills, and we’ll vote (on whether) to put them in the sine die,” McConnell said Monday, referring to the resolution that lays out the bills that senators can consider when they return. “But I’m only one of 46 senators. If (Haley) will use as much energy to get votes as she did to run over the Constitution, she’ll make it. She needs to get out and get the votes. The ball is in her court.”

I was busy laughing at the Senate president pro tem’s statement that “I’m only one of 46 senators” (he is such a wacky cutup) but when I got to the next sentence, I was like, “Whoa! Sen. McConnell is not amused…”

Talk about being Ms. Bossypants…

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One of the women in my household took it back to the library, so I didn’t get far enough in Tina Fey’s Bossypants to find out what happened after she hit puberty, but that’s cool. The part I did read was pretty funny.

What is not funny is the Gov. Bossypants we have over at the State House, who did this today:

Gov. Nikki Haley ordered lawmakers back to Columbia next week after they failed to pass a key piece of her legislative agenda on the legislative session’s last day, sparking dissention among legislative Republicans and howls from Democrats.

Haley wants lawmakers to return at 10 a.m. Tuesday to consider bills creating a Department of Administration, allowing the governor and lieutenant governor to run as a ticket, allow the governor to appoint the secretary of education and a bill merging the Department of Probation, Pardon and Parole into the Department of Corrections.

“Pick any two,” Haley said, asking lawmakers to voluntarily forfeit the $250 daily pay they are due, a total of $42,500 a day….

In other words, Do my will, and don’t get paid for doing it.

What a supreme mix of autocratic egoism and faux populism. The perfect Tea Party mix, steeped so as to make the maximum Palin-style impression.

Of course, she did allow them to pick two out of four, which I suppose Her Bossiness would consider to be magnanimity.

Here’s the problem with that: I would gladly vote for three out of the four (if her Bossiness could deign to condescend to do so, I would, were I a lawmaker, have to ask her to explain the virtues of combining the D of PP&P with Corrections). You know why? Because I am one of South Carolina’s most monotonously persistent advocates of giving the executive branch the ability to effectively administer the executive branch and be accountable for it.

But this kind of presumption of dictating to the legislative branch plays straight into the hands of those lawmakers who want to mischaracterize such proposals as a case of executive overreaching: See? She’s trying to FORCE lawmakers to pass the laws she wants. She should advocate strenuously for her positions, but there is a world of difference between advocating that a coequal branch of government do something, and using the power of one’s own branch to FORCE an issue that is the prerogative of that other branch.

The latter is not cool. Which, to turn full circle, brings us back to Tina Fey — a standing prop of her comedy is that she is not cool, not by a long shot.

But when Gov. Haley does the Bossypants routine, it’s just not as funny.

The Second Battle of Amazon, with a different outcome

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Had to type that headline three times. Fingers kept wanting to hit X instead of Z. Oh well; at least it’s easier to spell than “Manassas.”

Ever since this started heating back up last week, I’ve been meaning to do a post on it so we can discuss it. But so much has been happening that by the time I get set to react to one development, there are several more. There’s crazy buzz about it.

An hour or so ago someone Tweeted:

Reporter at Statehouse just saw Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt come out of secret meeting with House GOPers and Gov. Haley over Amazon.

… to which I responded, “Secret?” Which drew the response, “They’re met behind closed doors. They kicked our dude out. Not illegal, just out of sight.”

Anyway, here’s the latest, from that same source:

S.C. House has reversed course and has APPROVED tax-collection exemption for Amazon.

Boy, that happened fast, didn’t it? Just goes to illustrate something I say all the time in the face of Conventional Wisdom that this or that is going to happen, or this or that will never happen in politics: Anything can happen. It’s never over. The Fat Lady can screech all she wants.

John O’Connor reports that “35 Republicans and 17 Democrats switched their Amazon vote from April 27.” And Will Folks says “@nikkihaley also told the Caucus that she would not ‘hold it against them’ if they voted for Amazon.” Nothing like leadership, huh? But all I have for you about today’s developments are these bits and pieces.

I don’t know what happens next, either, beyond it needing to go to the Senate. But I thought I’d give y’all this chance to talk about it. For fuel, here’s a recent news story about the resurrection of the debate, and here’s another and here’s another. And here’s the latest attempt by Amazon to sweeten the deal. And here’s a radio ad from opponents.

So, what do y’all think?

Whew! I feel SO much better…

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No doubt you, too, will sleep more soundly once you read this:

Haley dismisses risk of debt
ceiling disaster

… Haley was asked Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” whether the debt ceiling should be raised.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “We are seeing total chaos in D.C. right now. The very first thing they need to do is make sure that they stop raising the debt.”

However, the federal government finances itself partly by selling debt to investors and other countries through Treasury bills that must be paid back, Obama said in a town hall style meeting shown on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“If they thought that we might renege on our IOUs, it could unravel the entire financial system,” he said, and the result would be a recession worse than the last one.

“So we can’t even get close to not raising the debt ceiling,” Obama said.

Asked about the possibility of damaging America’s credibility, Haley said, “Government is notorious for saying the sky is falling.”…

And remember, our gov knows about money stuff like this. She is a way skillful accountant. Just ask her; she’ll tell you.

Also, she never makes mistakes. Ever. We are in such good hands…

And if you read further in that same story, you encounter this:

“I find it silly,” Haley said about talk of her joining a Republican presidential ticket in 2012.

Right again, governor! Nothing sillier… Told you she was awesome.

Of course, there is a downside to this good news:

Haley said she is committed to serving out her term as governor.

“The people of South Carolina took a chance on electing me,” she said. “It is my job and my family’s job to prove to them that they made a good decision.”

It appears she’s not Mark Sanford after all (at least, not on this). Good for Gov. Haley!

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At least, not on this point.

Assuming that Nikki Haley actually does sign the ATV safety bill today, she deserves a huge “Huzzah” from rational South Carolinians everywhere.

His repeated vetoes of this bill stand as the most malicious, harmful instances of his bloodless application of ideological abstractions to governance. His stance shocked the sensibilities of even some libertarians.

It’s ridiculous that something so common-sense as this bill should be “progress” in this state, but it is. And we must celebrate what little we get in that regard, because sometimes we go backwards.

Case in point: Myrtle Beach expects to be flooded with bikers this year because it has rescinded its “controversial” ordinance requiring that helmets be worn.

Where else would such a no-brainer (pun intended) be regarded as “controversial”? OK, maybe some places out West. Or wherever large numbers of bikers gather. But it’s still very us.

Is our governor politically clueless, or does she know EXACTLY what she’s doing?

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Either way, it’s not good for South Carolina.

If you expect her to be mindful of the opinions of South Carolinians, you have to be puzzled by this behavior:

Gov. Nikki Haley said Thursday that a sales tax exemption Gov. Mark Sanford’s administration promised to Amazon, if granted, would destroy her economic development message.

While speaking in Charleston at the Free Enterprise Foundation awards luncheon, Haley addressed the Internet retailer’s decision to cancel a planned distribution center in Lexington County after the S.C. House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected the promised sales tax exemption.

The planned facility would have brought about 1,250 jobs to the Midlands.

Haley described the tax break that her predecessor promised as a “distraction” and said it is dangerous. She drew a distinction between the retail-related jobs Amazon would have brought and manufacturing jobs such as those Boeing Co. is bringing.

When talking to companies about coming to South Carolina, Haley said she tells them, “We are going to give you a fair, competitive marketplace to do business, and we are always going to take care of the businesses we already have.”…

So you ask yourself, why would she bother coming out and saying thing like this NOW, when the debate is over? When the issue was in doubt, she studiously avoided taking responsibility for any position. (She made it clear she didn’t LIKE the incentive, but promised to do nothing to stop it — while standing by as her Commerce secretary lobbied for it.) She didn’t want her fingerprints on whatever happened in any way.

So why make a speech about it NOW, when it’s moot? After all, the people who wanted Amazon to get the break are really unhappy now — as I can attest, having had to explain my own position to some of them the last couple of days. Why further antagonize them? Why not be quiet, or just say it’s a shame it didn’t work out, without going on about how jobs that aren’t manufacturing jobs are no good? (“Retail by nature is a lower-priced job. And retail by nature is not solid and invested. It is not a Boeing. It is not a BMW. Manufacturing, high technology is very different.”)

The only explanation I can see is that Nikki Haley has never been about trying to get things done here in South Carolina. She’s always been about appealing to what she sees as a potential national constituency — the kind of ideologues elsewhere who couldn’t care less about jobs in SC, but who DO have a marked prejudice against economic incentives. With them, badmouthing the Amazon proposal is win-win. She was, after all, speaking to the Free Enterprise Foundation.

Which do you think it is? Is she clueless? Is she, as David Woodward suggested, just that much of an amateur? Or is it all on-message calculation — a calculation that leaves us in SC out completely?

Best way to get a good grade — have a great relationship with the teacher…

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Did you see that our governor has taken a break from writing her memoirs to grade her performance in the few days she’s been in office:

By Dawndy Mercer Plank – bio | email

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – Governor Nikki Haley is touring the state talking about her first 100 days in office, and her hits and misses so far.

The governor is boasting of changing the leadership of the Budget and Control Board, getting Medicaid reform passed, on-the-record voting permanent law, changes to the budget and getting agency directors approved within six weeks time.

We asked Governor Nikki Haley to grade herself on her first 100 days in office. “Effort, absolutely A+++!” she said. “I sleep and breathe this every day. I want everything done yesterday. For accomplishments, I’d honestly give myself an A. We are so excited for what we’ve done in 100 days. We really, really are.”…

Actually, I only heard her say “A-plus,” not “A-plus-plus-plus.” But still…

So now you know what it takes to be a great governor. That, I suppose, is why our past governors haven’t been as “fabulous” as we might have liked: they weren’t “great” wives and moms.

At least, they haven’t been as wildly fabulous as Nikki. Which she has been. Just ask her, she’ll tell you.

I tell you, folks, I’ve encountered a lot of manifestations of ego and narcissism in my going on 4 decades of closely following politics. But I’ve never encountered anything quite like what Nikki Haley has become.

Some of this might actually be a gender thing: Women can get away with a certain over-the-top enthusiasm, even about themselves, that would brand a man a major jerk. Things that a man could NOT get away with can sometimes be seen as charming when said by a woman with a nice smile.

Or maybe I’m completely off-base. I’m just groping here, trying to figure out why she gets away with this stuff…

It’s just not as adorable once you’re the governor

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I keep meaning to spend some time …

Do you realize how often I start posts that way — wishing I would find the time for this or that? Well, I assure you that I mean it. There’s just not enough time in the day for all I’d like to get to. Never has been. Even when I was unemployed. Which reminds me of Nick Hornby’s brilliant riff on that point in About A Boy, in which a guy who does not work because he lives off the royalties of a novelty song his father wrote wonders to himself how anyone could possibly find the time in the day to work. Which I would link you to if Google books would let me see that page.

Where was I? Oh, yes…

I keep meaning to spend some time keeping track of other blogs in SC, but almost never do. It’s sort of important to keep up, since there’s just one of me, and other bloggers stay plugged into different things, and reading them would at least keep me up on the buzz. But the practice seems to fall somewhere behind reading The Guardian and The Times each day, which I’d really like to do, but don’t get around to either.

However, today when I woke up my PC, I glanced down at the little alerts in the corner from my feedreader, and clicked on this one before it disappeared forever (the Who-inspired headline, “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” was what grabbed me), and found myself reading Earl Capps:

Here in the Blogland, we’ve often chuckled at the newcomers to politics who see everything in an extreme either-or context, defining everyone as either “establishment” or “reformer”.
Anyone who can take such a simplistic view of state politics is either very uninformed or intellectually dishonest, as those who’ve been in the state’s political arena for any amount of time (which the “children” call “insider establishment” types) learned a long time ago that it’s never black-and-white. Such types often end up resorting to gutter childish tactics when they find that it’s not enough to think you’re right and that you have to actually inform and persuade people to come around to your point of view (and typically do a lousy job of doing so)….

That Earl. He’s such an experience-stained cynic, isn’t he? But something in that resonated to the point that I posted a comment:

Hey, Earl…
“…the newcomers to politics who see everything in an extreme either-or context, defining everyone as either ‘establishment’ or ‘reformer’…”
A set of people to which our new governor belongs. And of course, no matter what SHE does or does not do, she unfailingly sees herself as a “reformer.”
Which would be amusing if she weren’t, you know, the governor…

And then I thought, Why am I spending time leaving comments on some other blog? Why don’t I say that on my own blog? So I just did.

Larry Koon, back in the day

Nikki’s naiveté (or perhaps I should say, apparent naiveté — although I suspect that what keeps her going is that she really does see herself as a Ms. Smith Goes to Washington sort), linked with her apparently sincere interest in transparency and other things I would put in the “reform” column (things I’ve advocated since practically before she was born), was so appealing when she ran against ol’ Larry Koon — the very caricature of the do-nothing ol’ boy who’s just there because he likes being a big shot — back in the day. But then, as she reached out for greater power, and continued to act like she was the champion of reform while leaving a trail of questionable practices in her wake, it just ceased to be as endearing as it had at first.

The gov tries to explain her (more or less correct) position on Amazon

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Here’s a video Nikki Haley is touting in which she tries to explain her action/inaction on the Amazon issue.

As I said before, she’s sort of groping toward trying to do the right thing. She just has trouble articulating it.

But I agree with her that she’s in a tough spot, and Mark Sanford put her there. Hey, I can identify.

Nikki Haley doing right thing (I think) for wrong reasons

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The other night, I went to a reception for new Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt, my old shipmate at The State. Bobby was near the front door, and we exchanged pleasantries. Standing there with him and Mike Briggs from Central SC Alliance was the head guy from Amazon, whose name escapes me at the moment — and he didn’t have any cards with him, or I’d have it in front of me. (If this were a newspaper, I’d hold this report until I got the name, or rather, got a reporter or editorial writer to get the name for me. But it’s not a newspaper, it’s a blog; and you’re not paying for it, so get outta my face.)

Anyway, having said “Welcome” to Bobby (a bit ironically, since I’ve seen and chatted with him numerous times since he came back to town), I said an even more fervent “Welcome!” to Mr. Amazon, and we, too, exchanged pleasantries. I thought, “I really should ask this guy some questions,” but didn’t have any on me. At that point, I spotted the bar. I needed to be somewhere else in about 20 minutes, so if I were going to have a free beer, it was now or never. So goodbye, Mr. Amazon (Yes, interviewing a source when you have the chance is important, but there are other immemorial traditions of journalism that must be honored as well.)

On the way to the bar, though, I saw Lanier Jones, president of ADCO, and said, “Lanier, you should go over and meet the Amazon guy.” Which he did.

A couple of days later, this came out:

Amazon’s 1,200-job project in jeopardy

Online retailer Amazon.com pressed S.C. lawmakers Wednesday for a sales tax break for the distribution center that it is building near Cayce, amid concern that denying the incentive could jeopardize the $100 million project.

Amazon executives warned refusing the tax break is a deal-breaker for the project, projected to employ 1,249 full time by 2013 and provide up to 2,500 part-time jobs, some legislators and Lexington County officials said.

“The implication is if they don’t get it, they’ll pull out,” said House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham, R-Lexington. “That’s clearly an option they will look at if they do not get it.”

That day, Lanier said something about the fact that we knew about that. I didn’t know about it, I said. Lanier said that when he spoke to the guy, Mike said something about a tax problem, and the Amazon guy said, “It’s a dealbreaker.” Lanier figured I’d heard the same.

So maybe I should have hung around a tad longer. I just didn’t know that at the time… Oh, well.

Bottom line, what should SC do about this?

Nikki Haley has chosen, like Pontius Pilate, to call for a basin of water:

Gov. Nikki Haley on Thursday washed her hands of an effort to lure more than 1,000 jobs to Lexington County.

Haley said she does not support a tax incentive designed to entice online retailer Amazon.com to Lexington County, making clear her opposition a day after company officials said they will pull the plug on a planned distribution center unless they get the tax break.

But Haley said that if lawmakers — who are waiting to follow the governor’s lead — approve the tax break, she will not veto it….

So basically, whatever happens, it won’t have her delicate fingerprints on it.

Not that I mean to cast aspersions with the Pontius Pilate thing. Actually, Nikki’s right (I think; I’m still cogitating on this) not to support the tax break. And she’s right (although not what you’d call courageous, or a leader) to recognize that this is a hot potato.

But she opposes (kinda) it for the wrong reasons. She opposes it because of a Policy Council-style ideological objection to using incentives in economic development. Hey, I think a lot of incentives are a bad idea, but not all of them. That’s the problem with ideology; you don’t make distinctions between bad and good, you just always bet on black. Or red. Depending on your ideology.

The actual PROBLEM with the tax break is that businesses should not be allowed to skirt the sales tax. Not only do we have too many exemptions in the sales tax as things stand, but allowing Internet businesses to do that places other SC businesses, such as the proverbial Mom and Pops, at a terrible disadvantage.

Not only that, but it’s unfair to Walmart and others that have asked for such a break, and been turned down. So you have an equal protection problem.

But Nikki Haley isn’t going to put it in those terms. So I did.

All of that said, I don’t relish the idea of turning away those 1,200 jobs. Policy abstractions are one thing; actual jobs for South Carolinians is another.

So I’m a bit torn about it still. As the governor seems to be. So we have that in common.

This is an issue that I would have had a lengthy discussion with the editorial board about, to develop and sharpen my own thoughts before saying anything in the paper.

I don’t have an editorial board now. So what do y’all think?

Gamecock scores major Darla Moore scoop

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Or perhaps, rather than Gamecock, I should say, The Daily Sudoku & Crossword.

The students at “Ray Tanner University” had a bit of fun with this one, and really did a pretty good job — with the headlines, anyway (I just picked this up a few minutes ago, and haven’t had time to critique the text). The biggest laugh, of course, is “Darla buys Governor’s mansion,” but for those of more sophisticated tastes, the “1.0 GPA? 750 SAT? You’re in!” speaks to the main issue involved in Nikki Haley’s quest to replace anyone trying to elevate standards at the university.

And yes, it’s like this throughout this special April 1 edition.

Enjoy.

SC Dems are whistling ‘Dixie’ past own graveyard

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The headline in the paper over the weekend said, “S.C. Democrats: ‘We’re coming back'”:

S.C. Democrats still are smarting from a brutal November that stripped them of one of their two congressional seats, their only statewide office and a handful of General Assembly seats.

But, after some serious post-election number crunching, the state party contends Palmetto State Democrats fared better than Democrats in other states — whose candidates were clobbered by wide margins, too — and actually grew their ranks, laying the groundwork for a comeback.

“We’ve grown our base. These new numbers show we’re not dead and done like some people say,” said Jay Parmley, director of the S.C. Democratic Party. “Yes, we lost everything, but we’re coming back.”…

And what that headline tells us is, SC Democrats are delusional.

Oh, I’m not saying that it’s impossible that some new megatrend that has not yet been spotted by anyone could begin a reversal of the process that started in 1964, when Strom Thurmond joined the Republican Party, and white folks across the state started following him — first in a trickle, then in an accelerating flood.

What I’m saying is that there is no evidence extant at this time to believe that the Democrats are reversing nearly five decades of history trending against them in this state.

Certainly not the main “evidence” the optimists, whistling past their own partisan political graveyard, cite.

Vincent Sheheen’s strong showing is by no means a good sign for Democrats. Vincent Sheheen didn’t do that well because he was a Democrat. He did that well in spite of being a Democrat.

Vincent Sheheen was obviously a stronger candidate, who would clearly have been a better governor, than Nikki Haley. This could not be hidden from SC voters. They liked him better. But he lost, barely, because there are so many white folks in this state who would rather poke themselves in the eye with a sharp stick than pull the lever for a Democrat. His being a Democrat was therefore a huge liability.

If he had NOT been a Democrat — if he and Nikki had both run as Republicans, or if voters had somehow been kept ignorant of the party identification of the two candidates or, if you’ll allow me to dream (and Lord, hasten the day!), no candidate had had ANY party label — then he would have won.

This was obvious. Other statewide Republican candidates, in this huge year for Republicans nationally (and if you will recall, Nikki did everything she could to make the campaign national, running against Barack Obama instead of Vincent Sheheen, who was more likable than she) won in landslides. We’re talking double-digit margins. As I wrote right after the election:

It was so evident that Nikki was the voters’ least favorite statewide Republican (yes, Mick Zais got a smaller percentage, but there were several “third party” candidates; Frank Holleman still got fewer votes than Vincent). I look at it this way: Mark Hammond sort of stands as the generic Republican. Nobody knows who he is or what he does, so he serves as a sort of laboratory specimen of what a Republican should have expected to get on Nov. 2, 2010, given the prevailing political winds. He got 62 percent of the vote.

Even Rich Eckstrom — and this is truly remarkable given his baggage, and the witheringly negative campaign that Robert Barber ran against him — got 58 percent…

Oh, for those of you who don’t know, Mark Hammond is the secretary of state. Voters, by and large, don’t know that. All they knew was that he was labeled “Republican.”

That Nikki Haley, with her 51 percent, didn’t come anywhere close to their margins testified to voter discomfort with her (as opposed to a generic Republican like Hammond), and to the strength of her opponent (because SOME of those voters who went for the GOP in every other race voted for Vincent).

If she hadn’t had an R after her name, and he hadn’t had a D, he would be governor now.

And Democrats who say otherwise are fooling themselves.

NYT Mag: “Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, doesn’t care what you think.”

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Of course, we knew that — I’ve noted it before (most recently with regard to the Darla Moore affair). But it’s interesting that any national media have noticed it, given the hagiographic coverage she usually receives outside the state.

The State took note of the New York Times Magazine article several weeks back. They saw the “Comet” headline, and noted her wildly hubristic statement that “I don’t lose.”

But they apparently missed the subhead — probably because whoever was doing The Buzz for that edition looked at the piece online, rather than in print.

And that was the best part.

Above is a shot from a PDF of the print edition, which an alert reader shared.

By the way, that little pun — Haley the Comet — reminds me of something I saw in Oxford during my recent visit.

It seems that when Edmond Halley, famous for having first charted the path of the comet, was at Oxford (The Queen’s College), he decided to knock a hole in the roof of his top-floor flat so that he could watch the stars from there. The landlord was VERY accommodating — even though he wasn’t yet the famous Halley of the Comet — and a little observatory structure was built onto the roof.

At least, that’s the way our guide on the walking tour told it. The story may be apocryphal (a few minutes on Google just now failed to confirm it).

But if it’s true, it occurs to me that Halley didn’t care what people thought, either. With him, it turned out all right in the end. With our own Haley, the Comet… that definitely remains to be seen.

Below is the picture I took on Jan. 4 of the building where Halley lived:

Another middle-aged white guy heard from about Kitzman letter

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And the thing is, this one is one of Eleanor Kitzman‘s bosses — House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Cooper, 50.

This came in over the transom yesterday, and I suppose it’s the letter that John O’Connor (oh, and happy birthday today, John) referred to in this story.

Of course, I kid about the “middle-aged white guy” thing, because I find Identity Politics (particularly as practiced by Ms. Kitzman) so wonderfully goofy. But the real issue is how unprofessional it is to play the defensive toady to ONE of your bosses in such a public manner.

So I can see how Rep. Cooper would not approve.

Pretty scathing, huh?