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):

In contrast, Nikki voted AGAINST South Carolina taking the Obama stimulus dollars. It’s a vote she is proud of. And it’s a position that none of the other candidates for governor is willing to take – not when the debate was happening, and not now (click to play):

Mr. Barrett and his campaign will do whatever they can to make sure you don’t remember that he helped make the Wall Street bailout happen. They don’t want you to remember that if it wasn’t for his vote, and the 262 like it, we may not have opened the floodgates that led to the stimulus and the auto bailouts and all the rest of the mess we’ve seen out of Washington recently.

But he cast that vote, the Wall Street bailout is a reality because of it, and generations of South Carolinians will be paying it back. And no campaign tricks or backpedaling will change that truth.

Thanks for taking the time to read and for all that you do for the campaign. Nikki appreciates it more than you know – as do the rest of us on the Haley for Governor team.

Best,

Tim Pearson Campaign Manager

P.S. – We need your continued help to spread Nikki’s message, so please click here to request a bumper sticker, here for a yard sign, and here to make a contribution.