Nikki Haley says women don't care about birth control, unless they do

By Michael J.W. Stickings

She was okay on Colbert last night -- amusing for a politician, and fairly likeable, if also typically partisan (can't give Obama any credit whatsoever for the economy!) -- but her appearance on The View yesterday included this brilliant nugget, in response to an easy lob-ball question from resident conservative Elizabeth Hasselbeck (see clip below):

"Women don't care about contraception," Haley said, "they care about jobs and their families..." She was cut off by Joy Behar, who bristled along with the rest of the panel and noted that women should care about contraception. "The media cares about contraception," Haley tried again, and then concluded that while women might care about contraception, they just want to be able to make those decisions themselves, without government involvement. Interesting position for a female Republican governor!

Indeed. Sounds like she's a tad conflicted, as perhaps are many Republican women watching their party wage war on... women.

Of course it's obvious that women (and a lot of men) care about contraception -- they all use it, after all (pretty much, anyway). I suspect that what Haley meant is that in terms of political issues women care more about jobs and the economy than birth control, that is, that women don't want birth control to be a political issue at all -- because it's a settled and firmly private matter, as most of us thought it was before Republicans decided to make it a centerpiece of their misogynistic war.

It just didn't come out that way, and her view that women should be able to make decisions themselves, in private, is a rather un-Republican one these days.

She said on Colbert that she wouldn't accept an invitation to be on Romney's ticket, but of course that's what she has to say. And it seems to me that she'd be a serious contender for the nod given her various demographic and ideological bona fides.

She'll just have to make sure to get the orthodox GOP talking points down if she wants to move up in the party.

Nikki Haley to be indicted for tax fraud? (update)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Updating my post from earlier today, it looks as if South Carolina Gov. (and right-wing star) Nikki Haley is not going to be indicted for tax fraud:

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's office Friday provided IRS documentation that she is not facing investigation for tax fraud, calling accusations that she was "totally contrived."

Haley denied the rumors of a looming tax indictment on Thursday. The rumors were based on an anonymously sourced blog post alleging that the Internal Revenue Service was investigating possible tax fraud at a Sikh center where the governor's parents are top officials. The Palmetto Public Record claimed Haley managed the temple's finances as recently as 2003 and implicated her in a failure by the temple to pay contractors. The governor denied keeping the books for the church.

Well, as I wrote, innocent until proven guilty, and the rumor only came from this one relatively unknown blog, at least outside of South Carolina, the Palmetto Public Record.

Unsurprisingly, Haley has taken aim at "dirty blogger politics," a typically Palin-esque way of deflecting a crisis (or any bad news), and is also arguing (ridiculously, it seems to me) that such rumors are hurting the state's efforts to attract business investment, but actually, as The State reports, there were other reasons for speculation, and even if the IRS isn't investigating Haley personally, it is probing possible tax irregularities (to put it nicely) at her parents' Sikh temple. 

Again, there may be nothing to this. For all I know, the IRS will find, or has already found, that the temple did nothing wrong or that, even if it did, Haley didn't do anything wrong. But I do still wonder how all this will hurt Haley's national profile, if at all.

Would she have been on Romney's VP shortlist? Will she be, even now?

It's hard to see Romney going with an inexperienced young governor after the Palin debacle of '08, but she seems to be much more substantial than Palin and obviously is demographically desirable for the extremely white/male GOP.

It's certainly a possibility.

Nikki Haley to be indicted for tax fraud?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

S.C. Gov Nikki Haley, with some unidentified attention-seeker

Well, so much for being a possibility for the Romney ticket in November. Looks like the South Carolina governor is going to be dealing with some legal troubles soon:

Two well-placed legal experts have independently told Palmetto Public Record they expect the U.S. Department of Justice to issue an indictment against South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on charges of tax fraud as early as this week.

A highly ranked federal official has also privately confirmed rumblings of an investigation and possible indictment of the governor, though the official was not aware of the specific timeframe.

Yesterday, Palmetto Public Record exclusively reported that the Internal Revenue Service has been investigating since March of 2011 the Sikh worship center run by Gov. Haley’s father. At least five lawsuits have been filed against the Sikh Society of South Carolina since 2010, alleging that the group bilked contractors out of nearly $130,000 for the construction of a new temple.

Gov. Haley is reported to have managed the temple’s finances as late as 2003, and our sources believe any indictment would center on what happened to the missing money.

I know, I know, innnocent until proven guilty. But it wouldn't exactly help a privileged rich douchebag to have someone accused of tax fraud as his running mate, even if her conservative bona fides are in order and she endorsed him back when he really needed a boost.

(Besides, while she would bring certain demographic benefits to the ticket (female, non-white), she's not exactly crazy Christianist enough for Republicans, many of whom would recoil at the mere thought of a Mormon/ex-Sikh ticket, even if she is a Methodist now.)

For more, see Ed Kilgore at Political Animal.

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Conservative South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley endorses faux conservative Mitt Romney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

At first glance, it seems somewhat surprising that right-wing South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley would endorse a faux conservative and shameless opportunist like Romney. Shouldn't she be going for Newt, or perhaps even for a more authentic conservative like Santorum?

Whatever else you want to say about Haley, she seems to be politically savvy in a way that many other young stars in the Republican Party aren't.

The reasoning she gives for her endorsement is that Romney has changed for the better since 2008, when she also backed his bid for the GOP nomination. He's no longer just a candidate, she says, but a leader focused on getting things done. (As opposed to Gingrich, who was just a legislator, she dismissively argues.) And he's promised her that he'd give her state an opt-out from the Affordable Care Act, a not-insignificant pledge for a conservative like Haley given Romney's poisonous association with Obamacare as the original health-care reformer in Massachusetts (hence why so many on the right loathe him).

As for Gingrich, she dismisses him as a worthless legislator and tarnished insider: "I don't want anybody who was involved in anything to do with the chaos that was in Washington," she said, presumably also dismissing Newt's Contract with America.

Plus, she didn't like how Gingrich criticized Republican wunderkind Paul Ryan's Ayn Randian budget plan earlier this year, characterizing it as right-wing social engineering. (Newt recanted, you'll recall, but that obviously wasn't good enough for he, nor for many pro-Ryan fantasists on the right.)

How does this reflect her political savvy? Haley is ambitious and has a bright future in the GOP, possibly at the national level. It may not be now, but it could be 2016. And so she's being careful not to make any mistakes by backing the wrong horse and upsetting the party elite that she herself would need to court for her own presidential run.

Indeed, I suspect that the real reason she doesn't support Newt is that she knows his campaign is a train wreck waiting to happen and prudently thinks better of hopping aboard. This way, if Romney wins the nomination, she'll be seen as one of his most high-profile and important supporters, helping in a key early-primary state. She could be his running mate but even if not she'll have made a good name for herself with the party elite, both politicians and pundits alike, that for the most part is backing Romney and that would perhaps promote her down the road. Were Romney to become president, she's have a close ally in the White House. Were he to lose, she'd be well-positioned to be a major player in 2016, as a serious contender for the nomination or as a top-tier veep pick for someone like Christie or Huntsman.

See? Very savvy. Watch out for Nikki Haley. She could come out of all this Republican madness looking very strong.

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Here, watch Haley and the three morning morons on Fox News: