Friends,
Our campaign added a new supportive voice yesterday.
I have always had great respect for the intelligence, strength, and grace of Jenny Sanford. The years have shown her to have a deep and abiding love for our state, and the fact that she believes so strongly in what our campaign is about — protecting the taxpayers, bringing accountability to our broken government and making South Carolina a competitive place to live and work — that she has chosen to get involved in this race is something I am both humbled and proud of.
Take a moment to read Jenny’s letter and request below. Like so many of us, she cares about our state and the direction it will take in 2010. So please join Jenny as part of the Haley for Governor Team, and click here to show your support for our campaign.
We will make you proud – and make South Carolina a great place to live and work.
My very best,
Nikki
P.S. – Here’s First Lady Sanford’s letter supporting my campaign:
November 11, 2009
Dear Friend,
A friend recently asked me, “What’s your wish for South Carolina’s future?”
It’s an important question.
With the economy still badly hurting, and so many people in South Carolina without jobs, I certainly wish for growth for our state’s businesses. With many of our public schools shamefully underperforming, I dearly wish for better educational opportunities for our children. With a state government structure that rewards the status quo and stands in the way of change, I wish for vital government reforms. It’s amazing how much better off the people of our state would be if those things happened.
But they won’t happen by just wishing for them. They won’t happen without an enormous amount of hard work.
And they won’t happen without making a lot of entrenched powers upset.
I’m proud of the work Mark and his Administration have done over almost seven years now, trying very hard to move the ball forward on all of those fronts. Little in life that is worth accomplishing ever comes without some setbacks along the way. While the Sanford Administration has had some defeats in its efforts to reduce out-of-control state spending, reform archaic state government structure, and give children more educational choices, it has also had successes.
Next year South Carolina will elect a new Governor, and what will happen then?
Well, it depends on who we elect.
It would be a real shame if our next Governor chose not to stand up to the big spenders in Columbia who have grown state government so massively in recent years. Or if we had a Governor who was content to allow our 19th Century form of government to continue without accountability or reform. Or someone who would let the education bureaucracy continue to stifle all attempts at adding competition into the public school system.
That’s why I think it is so important that South Carolina elect Nikki Haley as our next Governor.
If you don’t know a lot about Nikki Haley, I hope you take the time to learn more. When you do, I’m sure you will agree that she’s the best person for the job.
Nikki, married to an officer in the military and mother of two children in public schools, is a State Representative from Lexington County. But she’s not a career politician. She was born and raised in Bamberg, graduated from Clemson with a degree in accounting, and worked in the business world, starting with doing the books for her family’s successful small business when she was just 13, and later working in a large company in Charlotte.
Five years ago she shook up the political establishment by running against, and beating, the longest serving member of the General Assembly. And she did it running as a real conservative in a Republican primary. That takes guts, and it takes smarts, and Nikki has lots of both.
During her short time in the General Assembly, Nikki has done two very remarkable and unusual things. First, she has consistently stood up for taxpayers. She has earned the highest rating in the entire General Assembly from leading pro-taxpayer groups, fighting wasteful government spending at every turn.
Second, Nikki has shown uncommon courage in her willingness to take on the political bosses and not back down from the fight. For example, she discovered that in the General Assembly, fewer than ten percent of all votes made by legislators were on the record. Can you image that? How are voters supposed to hold their elected officials accountable if the politicians rig the system so we can’t even find out how they vote?
Nikki Haley took it upon herself to stop this corrupt system and fought to have each and every vote put on the record so taxpayers could see all the special interest deals and the wasteful spending. As you can imagine, that didn’t go over real well with the leadership in Columbia. They threatened to pull Nikki’s committee assignments from her, and when she refused to back down, they fulfilled that threat. She still didn’t back down. And she got results – we now have an unprecedented number of votes on the record. There’s still more work to be done, but thanks to Nikki Haley, we now have much more information about what our state government is doing.
So when I’m asked my wish for South Carolina’s future, my wish is for a leader of state government like Nikki Haley. She’s principled, conservative, tough, and smart.
And there’s one other thing.
We all know this past year has been very difficult for our state on many levels. It’s been hard for me and my family too. But our family is resilient, and we will be fine. And the people of our state are resilient too. I have no doubt South Carolina will get back on its feet. Nikki Haley would be exactly the kind of refreshing, inspiring, energetic, determined governor South Carolina needs to effectively lead our state to a brighter future.
I am strongly supporting Nikki Haley for Governor, and I hope you will too.
Please go to her website, http://www.nikkihaley.com to learn more. And please make a financial contribution to her campaign (all of the details for how to make a donation are on the enclosed card and on her website).
Our state’s future is too important to leave to just another go-along-get-along career politician. Nikki Haley is the best person to be South Carolina’s next Governor.
Sincerely,
Jenny Sanford
