Posted under Conservatism & Election 2010 & Immigration & TEA Parties
The nomination of Nikki Haley is a mixed blessing from a paleo perspective. She may be weak on immigration. There is good reason to believe she is. But on the other hand, immigration wasn’t really an issue in the Governor’s race, and Haley was the identified candidate of the TEA Party movement (with some justification) and therefore her victory is a very public victory for the TEA Party. And it was a public repudiation of Gresham Barrett for his vote for the bailout.
That said, I fear that South Carolina conservatives may come to regret that they so vigorously rallied to her defense against the allegations of extra-marital affairs and so cavalierly turned a blind eye to them. How should a supporter of a candidate respond when these types of allegations arise? Here is my take in the replies to this post from Quin Hillyer at AmSpec. Mr. Hillyer seems to have some of the same reservations I do.
… an allegation is not untrue because we politically support the accused. Allegations must be judged on their merits just as you would if the allegations were against someone you were disinterested in. To automatically defend someone against a charge because you support him/her politically risks winding up with an enormous amount of egg on your face. Hasn’t experience taught us that these types of allegations are often true (Clinton, Foley, etc. etc. etc.)? Just ask Lanny Davis what it is like to defend someone based on political sympathy later to find out they were guilty.
I have a hard time believing that Folks, who has much credibility to lose, would just completely make something like this up. On its face, the allegation is at least as likely true as not. I won’t believe anyone in this mess for sure unless they volunteer to take and pass a polygraph. In fact, the fact that Haley didn’t DEMAND to take a lie detector test when the allegations first arose inclines me to believe they are either true or have some element of truth to them. What would you do if you were publicly accused of something you were totally innocent of? I know what I would do. I would take an army to keep me away from a lie detector. (This is the same logic I use when I conclude there is likely something fishy about Obama’s long form birth certificate or else he would release it to silence his skeptics.)
Last I read, Haley’s second accuser (the less credible one in my original estimation) volunteered to take a polygraph test and Haley, who was asked publicly, refused. (She didn’t exactly refuse. She gave a very fishy non answer.)
Here is Haley refusing.
http://www.midlandsconnect.com…..?id=466015
Here are Marchant’s results.
http://www.midlandsconnect.com…..?id=467390
I am afraid that the conservative voters in SC reacted in sympathy to Mrs. Haley, but they may be sorry if this ends up blowing up in their face before the general.
Marchant’s results were “inconclusive” but more positive than not. Read the link for an explanation.
Kirt Higdon on 24 Jun 2010 at 4:02 am #
I’m neither a supporter nor an opponent of Nikki Haley, nor a South Carolinian, so maybe I bring a disinterested viewpoint to this. I’ve always thought, perhaps naively indulging in stereotypes, that South Carolina is maybe one of the few places where the Southern gentleman survives – the type whose lips would be sealed even if he did have an adulterous affair with a married woman, the type who would not boast of his conquests. Perhaps enough South Carolinians think this way that the accusations worked in Nikki Haley’s favor, whether or not they were true. Our Lord forgave an adulteress; there is no record of his reaction to an adulterous cad.
As far as putting the burden on the accused party to “disprove” the accusation by taking a far from infallible lie detector test, that is just absurd. At various times, I have been accused of being a terrorist (frequently), a fascist, an anti-semite, gay, anti-American, a “putz”, etc. etc. etc. Should I rush for a lie detector every time such an accusation is made?
Weaver on 24 Jun 2010 at 8:37 am #
Haley on the flag: she’s neutral.
Barrett would have been great, but we’re pretty much stuck with Haley now. Maybe she’ll be alright – there’s not a lot of evidence for or against her. She’s kind of an unknown.
I see how significant it is that she’ll be elected, but she’s pretty much won already.
Weaver on 24 Jun 2010 at 8:38 am #
I was very surprised that she became so popular. She came out of nowhere.
Chris Hewlett on 24 Jun 2010 at 9:14 am #
I live in SC. I voted for Gresham Barrett. I know he voted for the bailout (the first time) but he also had very pointed anti immigration TV ads before the election. I don’t have a feel as to how conservative Mrs Haley is. She seems to be a hipster to me. I have a jaundiced eye for anybody that hip.
RedPhillips on 24 Jun 2010 at 1:05 pm #
Kirt, I never said Folks should have spoken out in the first place. He should have kept his big mouth shut as a gentleman would do. (A gentleman wouldn’t have an affair in the first place, but if he did he would shut up about it.) And I didn’t really buy his “I refuse to be blackmailed” explanation as sufficient justification for blabbing.
But once the charge was out there, on its face the charge is credible. It certainly isn’t outrageous enough to merit dismissal out of hand. If so on what grounds? This did not come out of the blue. There were rumors which Folks confirmed.
From the very beginning my thought has been, do you really believe Folks, who has a lot of credibility as an inside source to lose, would just make something like this up as part of a plot to sabotage Haley? What is more likely if we look at this objectively? That Haley had an affair or that Folks totally made it up?
And check out the literature on “fallible” lie detectors. Yes they are fallible, but they are very good. The problem comes more with inconclusiveness than with determining a lie to be the truth which is miniscule. And all this about the “burden of proof” is rationalization. That is legalese meant for a court of law, not the court of public opinion. (If you were Haley’s husband [the real victim in all of this] and she refused a lie detector wouldn’t that raise your suspicions just a bit? I don’t think you can credibly deny that it wouldn’t.) Why isn’t there an affirmative desire on the part of the accused to clear her name? But at least once publicly challenged to take one, if you are innocent you have to do so.
Jack Hunter on 24 Jun 2010 at 2:41 pm #
I voted for Haley proudly and would have sat out the election otherwise. No way Barrett would ever recieve my vote.
Kirt Higdon on 24 Jun 2010 at 3:06 pm #
I once had personal experience with the fallibility of a lie detector during the course of an informal tour of LAPD headquarters given me by a police friend of mine. Just as an experiment, I was hooked up to a lie detector and the cop interrogated me. It was basically no pressure since I was not accused of any crime, yet the machine showed one of my anwers as false when both I and my friend knew that it was true. He explained to me that the machine was simply picking up my strong emotional reaction to the question. I don’t doubt that an accusation of adultery, true or false, might cause a strong emotional reaction which could be interpreted by the machine or its operator as lying. On the other hand, pathological liars can naturally fool the machine and spies are trained to fool such machines. It is my understanding that there are very few courts which permit lie detector test evidence.
As far as the court of public opinion is concerned, the public will generally believe whatever is most titilating and scandalous, and I see no reason to empower slanderers and gossips by jumping to “disprove” any accusation that is made. They can always pile on the accusations faster than anyone can schedule lie detector tests and those who want to believe the gossip to begin with will not be convinced by any lie detector test. Were I Haley’s husband, I would trust her, I would not want her to take a lie detector test, and if she took one anyway, that would serve to make me suspicious, even if she passed it.
Bede on 24 Jun 2010 at 4:21 pm #
As I said in the previous post, there’s every reason to be skeptical of Nimrata Randhawa Haley.
(1) She’s insincere on immigration and more than likely, like Pihush Jindal, supports flooding the U.S. with H1Bs from India. (She also probably possesses many of the same bad habits of Piyush Jindal,) Gresham Barrett might have been wrong about some things, but he has a proven record on immigration. Immigration is a more important issue than the bailouts. A nation can recover from bad economic policy, but once the U.S. demographically becomes Brazil there’s no going back. Not that this would worry Haley, who probably takes delight in the downward trajectory of European Americans.
(2) The overwhelming support she has received from neocons like Bill Kristol demonstrates there’s probably much more than meets the eye.
(3) She’s a product of the Indian Lobby, which, like another ethnic anti-Western lobby I can think of, seeks to undermine the traditional character of America.
(4) Like Michael Steele, she probably eventually will be an affirmative action token and catapulted onto the national political stage.
Matt Weber on 24 Jun 2010 at 4:34 pm #
I have to side with ‘innocent until proven guilty’ on this one. It’s not about ‘dignifying’ anything with a response so much as that if an accuser is unwilling or unable to support their claim with any evidence, then why waste the time on it? Taking a polygraph sounds like a way to quickly defuse any controversy, but a false positive would make the situation far worse. I wouldn’t take the chance myself.
As for her politics, I don’t really know if immigration stances are a big deal in a state election, though you could argue that she may go on to be a national figure. Clyde Wilson thinks that Barrett is as good a conservative as a Republican can be, so I’d probably stick with his endorsement were I an SC resident. As it is, I really don’t know much about SC politics.
I do wish we could be spared the moralizing about how SC is ‘progressing’ by nominating someone from the Coalition of the Oppressed for governor. In fact, I’m not even sure how the relatively successful Sikhs got to be in the CotO.
RedPhillips on 24 Jun 2010 at 5:42 pm #
“Were I Haley’s husband, I would trust her, I would not want her to take a lie detector test, and if she took one anyway, that would serve to make me suspicious, even if she passed it.”
That’s fine Kirt if you want to believe that, but I think you are speaking with your emotions and not your intellect. Why would you automatically trust Haley if these rumors had been floating around for a while and there is circumstantial evidence such as their frequent proximity to one another?
“I voted for Haley proudly and would have sat out the election otherwise. No way Barrett would ever receive my vote.”
That’s fine too Jack. I would have had a hard time voting for Barrett, but whether she is guilty or innocent of the allegations is another matter. Do you really believe she is innocent? If so, on what grounds? What has she done to establish her innocence other than issue a denial? I thought the e-mails Folks released were pretty suggestive. There was no smoking gun, but the thing was spoken of as if it were an established fact and the issue was just whether or not they were going to get to Folks.
Bill Fanning on 24 Jun 2010 at 8:02 pm #
Who cares with whom she’s sleeping? They’re all liars, anyway. I’m sure Mitt Romney’s faithful and he’s a world-class liar.
Kirt Higdon on 24 Jun 2010 at 8:05 pm #
Red, I’m not married to Nikki Haley and don’t know how trustworthy she is. But my intellect, not my emotions, tell me that if you believe A only if B confirms what A has stated, then you trust B more than A. If I trust what my wife says only if it is confirmed by a polygraph, then I am really saying that my wife is less trustworthy than a machine that I already know to be unreliable and an operator whom I don’t know at all. In fact, I trust my wife and it seems Mr. Haley trusts his.
Believer on 25 Jun 2010 at 4:36 am #
The Southern voter isnt interested in the Immigration issue now
but as a voter from California I can tell you that this should be the
number one issue on your minds. The only good thing to come from
Illegal immigration is that I have about 30 Mexican restaraunts within
two blocks of my home, so if you want to keep your economy stable
elect politions that believe in keeping Illegals where they belong,
Home.
Bruce on 26 Jun 2010 at 7:16 pm #
I do live in SC and I did vote for Nikki Haley based on her fantastic performance in the SC ETV debate. Of the four candidates she was by far the most conservative.
Bail-out boy Barrett was the least conservative candidate there BY FAR !
The only people I know who supported Gresham were the Southern Baptists who consider Barrett one of them. I never miss an opportunity to remind them that Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore were also Southern Baptists.
During the debate Nikki repeatedly blasted Barrett for being a co-sponser of the VAT. He had no defense and the next week he removed his name from the bill because” it conflicted with his conservative principles.” Oh really , when did the conflict begin and how long was his name on the bill before Gresham finally realized the conflict ? If Ms. Haley had not brought it up and embarrassed Gresham publically Gresham Barrett would still be sponsoring the VAT on imports.
A local Southern Baptist pastor and a baptist university vice president,still denies on his daily radio program that Gresham Barrett was ever in favor of the VAT bill. Dr. Tony Beam turned his radio program, Christian Worldview on WLFJ 660
AM and 92.9 FM into campaign headquarters for Barrett. For weeks guests would call in supporting Nikki, or Andre,or Henry and Tony would argue with them and try to convince them that” he knows Gresham’s heart” and we should all vote for Barrett.
He read an email on the air from a lady who warned him he was overdoing it. I emailed him and told him none of my friends were listening to his show anymore but he persisted in praising Gresham and bringing up every minor detail about Nikki’s past that he thought his Christian audience would disapprove of.
Tony, if you want to know what conservative voter’s disapprove of go to Youtube and watch your boy getting booed for 5:32 by the Tea Party crowd at the BiLo Center in Greenville. There is NO Way Gresham will ever get elected ever again. He bailed out the banks and they contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign. Character does count.
Thea on 07 Sep 2010 at 1:09 pm #
I am a great believer in how a person conducts his or her self before the election will be a great precurser of what is to come. She moved on her desceiption of her beliefs as soon as it became a possible problem for her election. She doesn’t pay her taxes on time (and she is going to “fix” South Carolina’s financial problems?) and if you have ever seen her speed through her neighborhood, busy on the phone, with no regard for her neighbors or their children.. then you know that Nikki Haley is just another politician, drunk on pwer, and “all about me”.
Oops … I Guess Nelson Mandela Really Was a Communist After All | Conservative Heritage Times on 10 Dec 2012 at 11:24 pm #
[...] with regards to how I think people should view allegations, here is what I had to say about the allegations made against Nikki Haley. | | | | | [...]