Category Archives: Nikki Haley

Nikki’s secret meeting to try to woo business

Well, this is ironic…

When I was typing this post back here about how Nikki Haley is trying to compensate for the fact that the Chamber backs Vincent Sheheen, I got a call from Henry McMaster. Actually, first I got an e-mail from Trey Walker asking for my phone number, then I got a call from Henry.

What was Henry calling about? Well, let me back up a day…

At the end of Monday’s Columbia Rotary Club meeting, I ran into Henry (he and I are both members) on my way toward the door. It was the first time I had run into him since he lost the primary, and we chatted for a minute about that. He said something about wishing he could roll time back a couple of months, which prompted me to ask him what he would do differently, to which he responded that there really wasn’t anything he could have done to achieve a different result. Too much tumbled Nikki’s way in quick succession — the ReformSC ad, the Sarah Palin endorsement, the wave of sympathy arising from the Will Folks stuff — not to mention having Jenny Sanford out there working for her.

I sensed that Henry was, at least in spirit, not entirely thrilled with his new role as supporter of the GOP nominee. But he’s a good soldier, and he quickly roused himself to do his duty. As I was about to walk away and Crawford Clarkson was approaching, he grabbed my arm and said hey, he wanted to invite me and Crawford to a special meeting on Thursday at noon at the Wilbur Smith building.

He said it was a chance for business people to get answers to the questions they have about Nikki Haley. Nikki will be there to answer them. “And you’re a business man now, right?” he said to me. You betcha, I said.

Questions? At the Wilbur Smith building? Questions like, what did Nikki do for Wilbur Smith for that 40 grand, aside from having “good contacts”? Well… actually, all sorts of questions, Henry said, such as about her position on this bill or that one… I didn’t press him further, because I figured I’d find out Thursday, right?

And the best part? Henry said the media wasn’t being invited. So as a business guy, I’d have a scoop. Nice being a businessman, huh?

That was yesterday.

Today, Henry called me rather flustered. He said it was a “totally closed, no-press event.” That meant somebody like me, who would turn around and write about it (and I would, too), was NOT invited. “They’re right emphatic about it,” he said.

He told me how embarrassed he was, and I knew he was. I thanked him for calling — after asking if our former Rotary president, and president of ADCO, Lanier Jones could go instead of me. Lanier’s a businessman, and he doesn’t blog.

Henry said the meeting was getting really crowded, and he didn’t know, but he’d check.

I feel bad for Henry.

Nikki “means business” — but business backs Vincent

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Wow. After having won the nomination on a wave of Tea Party extremism, the Nikki Haley campaign is trying rather desperately — and transparently — to portray her as “conservative” in the actual, traditional, conservative sense of the word.

So it is that I got this release from Nikki a few minutes ago:

I wanted to write you a quick note about National Review’s latest article on Nikki’s incredible primary victory and message of conservative reform focused on creating a pro-business, accountable government that’s truly working for the people of this state. Take a moment to read a few excerpts below…

National Review: She Means Business

South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley is a chamber of commerce conservative…

And so forth and so on…

Hmmm. Nikki “is a chamber of commerce conservative”? Really?

No, not really. Because the SC Chamber of Commerce is backing Vincent Sheheen.

Perhaps the National Review meant that she was “Chamber of Commerce-ish,” or “Chamber of Commerce-like,” or “Chamber of Commercesque.”

But you know what? Not even that would wash. Here’s what Nikki’s campaign had to say about the actual, real-world Chamber of Commerce in reaction to its endorsement of Vincent:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina business leaders are sticking with a decision not to endorse state GOP gubernatorial nominee Rep. Nikki Haley as her campaign Wednesday called the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce “a big fan of bailouts and corporate welfare.”

In case you don’t keep up with these things, that’s not the way “a chamber of commerce conservative” talks. That’s the way you talk when you’re the darling of the anti-establishment Tea Party.

Show us transparency, Nikki: Release the e-mails

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Did you see the strong editorial in The State Sunday, challenging Nikki “Transparency” Haley for hiding behind a loophole in FOI specifically carved out to protect legislators, and legislators alone, from transparency in order to keep her state-issued e-mail secret?

I was very glad to see it. As the edit pointed out, this isn’t about Will Folks or disgusting sex allegations. Neither The State‘s editorial board nor I expect to find anything about that if we ever see those e-mails. But the fact that this started with such accusations creates a smoke screen that lets Nikki get away with a flagrant flouting of the principles she lets on to hold most dear. From the heart of the editorial:

Ms. Haley, after all, is not just someone who thinks government transparency is a nice thing. Her one claim to fame as a legislator is her crusade to bring sunlight to a legislative process that for too long has protected lawmakers from accountability rather than giving the voters information they deserve. Her entire campaign for governor is built on that push for openness, for letting the public in on the Legislature’s secrets, for eliminating the special perks and privileges legislators give themselves and their friends.

Does that apply only to the direct expenditure of public money?

Does it apply only to other people?

Imagine if the blogger had claimed that he helped Rep. Haley secretly funnel millions of tax dollars into a green-bean museum and steer tens of millions more in cushy no-bid contracts to her campaign donors, and that messages on her government e-mail account would back up his claim. Is there anyone who would not be demanding that she make the correspondence public?

What is she hiding? Why doesn’t she want us to see the messages she has been sending as she juggled her campaign for governor with doing her job as a legislator?

It is not Ms. Haley’s job to disprove unsubstantiated allegations. It is, however, her job to prove that her commitment to ushering in government transparency and ushering out special legislative privileges is sincere — even more since it has been called into question before. She still hasn’t explained what she did to earn more than $40,000 in consulting fees from a government contractor that hired her for her “good contacts.”

If Ms. Haley were governor, we already would have seen her e-mails, because what governors write on their government e-mail accounts is public record. In fact, Gov. Mark Sanford’s attorney saw fit to turn over some e-mails from his personal account, because she determined that he was using it to discuss public business.

If Ms. Haley were the president of the University of South Carolina, we already would have seen her e-mails. Ditto if she were a $30,000-a-year clerk in the bowels of the bureaucracy, because what nearly all state employees write on their government e-mail accounts is public record.

The only reason her public e-mail correspondence has remained hidden is that she is a legislator, and legislators have written themselves a special exemption to the Freedom of Information Act.

This exemption is the very epitome of the secrecy that Ms. Haley vows to eliminate.

I’m glad to see this now. Because at some point, someone was going to point out this obvious inconsistency and raise a stink about it. My concern has been that it would happen in late October, thereby engendering another tidal wave of protective emotion that would sweep Rep. Haley to victory.

The time to address this is now, when there’s time to be calm. Time to see that she cannot possibly have any legitimate excuse not to share these state-sponsored communications.

What is she hiding, indeed? For all I know, absolutely nothing. But then I don’t know, because she’s hiding it, in a stunning display of contempt for the ideals she says she stands for.

Graham said what I think about the Tea Party

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On Sunday, my wife was reading the paper, and announced that there was something in there about what Lindsey Graham said in that New York Times Magazine profile recently.

Turns out it was a rehash of the quote about not being gay.

What I had HOPED was being quoted was what he said about the Tea Partiers, because it’s the one question that ought to be asked of those folks repeatedly:

“Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite of where the Tea Party movement’s at,” Graham said as Cato drove him to the city of Greenwood, where he was to give a commencement address at Lander University later that morning. On four occasions, Graham met with Tea Party groups. The first, in his Senate office, was “very, very contentious,” he recalled. During a later meeting, in Charleston, Graham said he challenged them: “ ‘What do you want to do? You take back your country — and do what with it?’ . . . Everybody went from being kind of hostile to just dead silent.”

In a previous conversation, Graham told me: “The problem with the Tea Party, I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.” Now he said, in a tone of casual lament: “We don’t have a lot of Reagan-type leaders in our party. Remember Ronald Reagan Democrats? I want a Republican that can attract Democrats.” Chortling, he added, “Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today.”

Whenever I hear Nikki Haley (you know Nikki Haley — she’s that extremist who wants to censure her own party’s senior U.S. senator for being a rational human being) say that line, “take our government back” to Tea Party cheers, I wonder the same things. Take it back from whom? To do what with it?

Yeah, good luck with that, professor

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Enjoyed the book review in the WSJ this morning of the book “Getting it Wrong,” debunking some epic media myths:

William Randolph Hearst never said, “You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast didn’t panic America. Ed Murrow’s “See It Now” TV show didn’t destroy Sen. Joseph McCarthy. JFK didn’t talk the New York Times into spiking its scoop on the Bay of Pigs invasion. Far from being the first hero of the Iraq War, captured Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch was caught sobbing “Oh, God help us” and never fired a shot.

But the best part was at the very end:

For all Mr. Campbell’s earnest scholarship, these media myths are certain to survive his efforts to slay them. Journalism can’t help itself — it loves and perpetuates its sacred legends of evil power-mongers, courageous underdogs, dread plagues and human folly. At the end of the book, Mr. Campbell offers some remedies for media mythologizing, urging journalists, among other things, “to deepen their appreciation of complexity and ambiguity.” Good luck with that, professor.

Yeah, good luck indeed. For instance, good luck expecting any depth or perspective in the PC tsunami that will wash over us from the national media as they thrill over the idea of “an Indian-American woman” becoming governor in the South. Never mind what she would do as governor, the simplistic identity politics narrative overrides all…

Peach Festival: Politicians and fringe types (oops, was that redundant?)

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Someone wondered the other day whether my having a job would cut into my blogging. Well, maybe at some point. For instance, I was busy all last week and couldn’t get to the Virtual Front Page late in the day. But folks, I’ve been at ADCO since February. Have you noticed me slacking off here?

Actually, the partners at ADCO dig the blog. In fact, I sometimes have to suggest that they stop sending me cool stuff for the blog so I can get some Mad Man work done. Some days, this falls on deaf ears.

Such as today. Today, Partner and VP of Marketing Lora Prill demonstrated that she is apparently a frustrated reporter. She had told me that she and her husband were taking their little boy to the Peach Festival parade today, and that if she saw anything interesting, she’d send me a picture. Cool.

Well, today, she sent me SEVEN e-mails and SIX pictures. Here are some of them.

The picture of Nikki above was taken “seconds after being heckled by the Oathkeepers. They are yelling at everyone–even the band and clowns–spoiling the fun for everyone in the vicinity.” Except Alan Wilson, whom they apparently liked, for whatever reason. Apparently, Oathkeepers is a bunch of guys in uniform — which is slightly disturbing — who have taken it upon themselves to protect the Constitution as they read it. Yeah, one of those groups. Because, you know, the Constitution is under siege and all. Interestingly, if you read their concerns, they’re a mishmash of threats that liberals perceive to the Constitution (Patriot Act stuff) and ones that concern the extreme right. What a bunch of worrywarts.

And they weren’t really yelling AT the candidates so much as they were yelling. When I asked why they were pestering Nikki, she amended her earlier bulletin (an editor has to really cross-examine a reporter to get the straight dope — oh, the burdens we bear!):

They were not really heckling anyone, they were just yelling out things about protecting the Constitution, something about the FDA, something about some sort of digital ID (they shouted that at Joe’s group), etc. They yelled out a lot about the FDA and food actually. When Alan Wilson went by they lauded him as a protector of the Constitution. Probably referring to his military service.

Maybe they were hungry, and that’s what got them on food. I don’t know.

Anyway, that’s our report from the Peach Festival.

Nikki Haley, Vincent Sheheen offer clear choice on Confederate flag

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The contrast between Vincent Sheheen and Nikki Haley will be sharp on a lot of issues, and we’ll get to them over the coming months.

But today, I want to highlight the difference between them on the Confederate flag flying on our State House grounds, as a window into broader differences. (And why that issue today? Because today is the 10th anniversary of the day it moved from the dome to the spot behind the soldier monument.)

Gina Smith in The State provided the following vignettes showing the difference. From Vincent Sheheen:

If elected governor in November, Sheheen said he is open to discussing the removal of the flag from the State House grounds. He was elected to the S.C. House a year after the compromise.

“We must develop an environment that creates jobs,” Sheheen said. “We cannot give up any edge that South Carolina has in attracting a large employer coming to South Carolina. After the last eight years, we must be proactive in creating a positive image of our state to the world.”

Sheheen offers no details, though, including locations where he would consider having the flag relocated.

“I have no predetermined proposal on the flag, but would like to work with legislative leaders, business leaders and community leaders to finally reach consensus. My job as governor will be to bring people together to reach consensus on how best to heal any divisions, including the flag,” he said.

It is unclear whether Sheheen supports the NAACP’s boycott.

And from Nikki Haley:

Haley wasn’t elected to the House until 2004. Haley believes a compromise was reached and the issue resolved.

“It was settled and it has been put away. And I don’t have any intentions of bringing it back up or making it an issue,” she said in a recent interview with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Instead, Haley said her focus is on making state government more transparent and more business-friendly. “If the people aren’t focused on the flag, it’s hard to see why the governor and General Assembly should be,” said Rob Godfrey, Haley’s spokesman.

Haley implied in the Sons of Confederate Veterans interview that she would work with the NAACP and others who want the flag removed from the State House grounds to address the NAACP boycott. “I’m the perfect person to deal with the boycott. Because, as a minority female, I’m going to go and talk to them and I’m going to go and let them know that every state has their traditions. … But we need to talk about business. And we need to talk about having (businesses) come into our state …”

As you see, Vincent understands that the time must come when we stop portraying our state to the world as a haven for neo-Confederate extremists who insist upon continuing to embrace the worst moments of our history. He’s just too diplomatic to put it in quite those terms. If he had the chance, he’d get it down. By the way, his Uncle Bob, the former speaker, had the best idea of all about what to do about the flag: Replace it with a bronze plaque noting that it once flew here. That’s a solution that would enable us to move on. But the GOP leadership refused to seriously consider that or any other reasonable solution on the ONE DAY they allowed for debate before rushing to embrace this “compromise” that settled nothing.

Nikki, however, promises not to touch it, which is the standard South Carolina Republican response. And now that she’s promised it to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, that’s that. Which is a real shame, given that since she wasn’t in the Legislature at the time, no one could legitimately pretend that she is in any way bound by the “compromise” of 2000. She wasn’t a party to it.

She’s come a long way from being the inspiring emblem for tolerance that she truly was when she ran in 2004, when I took up the cudgels for her against the forces of ugly nativism. I’d like to see the national media folks who are SO EXCITED, in their superficial way, that an Indian-American woman might be elected in South Carolina take a moment to consider this. They also might want to watch her cozying up to the neo-Confederates in these video clips. Just something that should go into the calculation…

Note also the HUGE difference in their understanding of the impact of the flag on economic development. Vincent understands that if we want the rest of the world to take us seriously, the flag needs to come down. Nikki thinks the only obstacle to economic development here is the rather sad, ineffective boycott by the NAACP, which is weird on several levels.

That was an unfortunate picture of Nikki today

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I’m talking about the one in the paper today.

Made her face look fat. Don’t you think? Nikki does NOT look like that.

In fact, if anything, she’s too skinny. She looks great in photos because the camera adds 10 pounds, and she could use 10 pounds. In person, I always worry about her; she just looks too thin.

But this camera must have been turned up to 30 pounds. This is not our Nikki.

Just wanted to let y’all know, I will stick up for Nikki when the situation calls for it — I mean, she’s a lady and all — even though the idea of her being governor appalls me.

bradwarthen.com

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