Nikki Haley for South Carolina Governor

Columbia, SC – Rep. Nikki Haley today announced her opposition to House Bill 4112. This bill would expand the ability of public officials who possess a Concealed Weapons Permit (CWP) to carry their weapons in areas where the general public cannot.

Haley, a CWP permit holder herself whose staunch support for gun rights has earned her a lifetime “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, remarked, “The state legislature was elected to represent the people of this state, not the special interest and convenience of themselves. This type of arrogance has to stop.”

“Instead of giving perks to elected officials, we should be passing a law that expands the carrying rights of every citizen of South Carolina,” Haley added. “If the current laws are an inconvenience to legislators – which they undoubtedly are – they are an inconvenience to everyone. It’s time that legislators stop treating themselves as a privileged, ruling class, and start working to benefit all South Carolinians.”

If the bill makes it to the House floor, Haley will introduce an amendment to change H. 4112 so that every CWP holder in South Carolina is covered by its provisions.

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WEST COLUMBIA – Nikki Haley has made a name for herself in politics since leaving her hometown of Bamberg.

Elected to represent District 87 in the S.C. House in 2004, in May she announced her candidacy in the June 2010 Republican primary for governor.

But Haley, 38, says she hasn’t outgrown her roots or the values she learned growing up in the small, rural town.

Haley, who is assistant director of the Lexington Medical Center, now lives in Lexington with her husband, Michael, a full-time federal technician with the S.C. National Guard, and their two children, Rena, 11, and Nalin, 8.

She began doing the accounting for her parents’ Bamberg clothing business, Exotica, when she was just 13. They – Dr. Ajit Randhawa and Raj Randhawa – entrusted her with that responsibility because they didn’t want her to know limitations, she says.

“They didn’t want me to know limitation of age, they didn’t want me to know limitation of gender, and they didn’t want me to know limitation of being Indian,” said Haley, whose parents are Indian Punjabi Sikh immigrants from Amritsar. “They said whatever you do, be great at it and make sure that people remember you.”

She apparently took that advice to heart, graduating from Clemson with a degree in accounting and going on to make history as the first Indian American Republican legislator in the U.S. Now she’s got her sights set on being governor.

Click here to view the whole story

Friends,

Hope all is well. Things are going great on the campaign front – Nikki’s message of real conservative reform is catching fire all across the state, and your support is a huge part of that.

The Myrtle Beach Sun News recently sat down with both Nikki and Gresham Barrett – and since there’s been some back-and-forth between the two campaigns recently, I thought you might find their take on the two interesting:

“For people who share a party, the stylistic differences between [Haley and Barrett] could hardly be more striking.

Haley, an accountant, presents herself as a far-right reformer, cast in a mold similar to the Mark Sanford of eight years ago. She has two primary claims to conservative fame (both of which may strike some voters as somewhat abstract, as Sanford-style issues often can): a successful but politically costly fight last year to put state legislators’ votes on the record, and her opposition to South Carolina’s use of $700 million in stimulus money to shore up shortfalls in its 2009 and 2010 budgets. …

While Haley shares Sanford’s ideology, however, she seems to lack his idiosyncrasies. The governor’s sometimes-distracted demeanor starkly contrasts with Haley’s fastidious, alert style, and it’s tough to imagine her toting piggies onto the Statehouse floor. ‘The accountant in me doesn’t have time for finger-pointing and fighting,’ she said.

Barrett hails from the high Upstate, the tiny town of Westminster, which he points out is about as far as you can get in South Carolina from Myrtle Beach. He’s cut from mainstream conservative cloth, building a career on core Republican issues: pro-life, pro-gun, pro-business and pro-military.

In fact, in today’s anti-partisan political climate, Barrett’s biggest liability may be his vote for the 2008 bank bailout. …”

You read that right, Congressman Barrett voted FOR the colossal waste of taxpayer dollars that was the bank bailout – and he would do it again, as you can see here (click to play): READ MORE »

NIKKI HALEY FOR GOVERNOR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 23, 2010

Contact: Tim Pearson
tim@nikkihaley.com
(803) 767-8943

This week, U.S. Senator John McCain took a large step back from his support of the infamous $700 billion Wall Street bailout that he voted for in 2008, saying he was “misled” by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson [http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0210/McCain_suspending_bailout_support.html].

In response to Senator McCain’s new position, gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley released the following statement as it pertains to South Carolina Congressman Gresham Barrett’s vote for the same bailout:

“Like millions of Americans, Senator McCain now understands that the bank bailouts were a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars that did not ease lending to businesses and consumers. Congressman Barrett voted for the same bailouts, yet he has repeatedly taken a very different tact, publicly stating on multiple occasions that if he had to do it all over again he would still favor bailing out Wall Street.

“In my version of capitalism, if a company succeeds, you don’t punish them by raising their taxes sky high; and if a company fails, you don’t reward them by having taxpayers bail them out. This philosophy goes to the heart of what kind of Governor I would be.

“South Carolina voters deserve an answer to a simple question for Congressman Barrett: Are you finally willing to admit that your vote to send 700 billion of our tax dollars to Wall Street banks was a mistake?”

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