South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley isn’t exactly a household name, but tonight at 9:45, Nikki will make her national debut.
Seeing as how many people don’t know Nikki Haley from Nikki Sixx, here’s a brief primer on the Palmetto State’s chief executive, the first woman to ever hold that position in South Carolina.
1. Nikki Haley failed to disclose that she made $42,000 as a consultant for Wilbur Smith Associates, a company that did business with the state. Haley voted on legislation regarding this business.
2. Nikki Haley was paid $110,000 as a fundraiser for Lexington Medical Center, even though she had no prior fundraising experience and was serving as a member of the state General Assembly, where legislation was pending regarding the hospital.
3. Nikki Haley claims that another party filled out her job application with Lexington Medical. On the job application, this mysterious phantom listed Haley’s annual income as $125,000, far more than the $22,000 she told the IRS. Lexington Medical stated that Haley did complete the application.
4. Nikki Haley once called Post and Courier reporter Renee Dudley a “little girl” for an article that she wrote detailing an extravagant trip that the governor and her staff took to the Paris Air Show.
5. Nikki Haley said that she secured two business deals during her much-maligned Paris Air Show trip, when in fact she did not.
6. Nikki Haley claims in her memoir “Can’t is not an Option” that her car was parked next to former S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford at the Columbia International Airport while Sanford was in Argentina seeing his mistress. Haley says that the media believed that because of this she was having an affair with Sanford. No one in the media remembers seeing Haley’s car at the airport, no one remembers these allegations coming up, and no one remembers talking to Haley’s campaign staff about these rumors or allegations that her car was parked next to Sanford.
7. Nikki Haley claims that an up-and-coming South Carolina political operative Wesley Donehue shut down her website to benefit her opponent Gresham Barrett. Donehue built Haley’s site and worked for Barrett. Donehue denies the charges.
8. Nikki Haley has refused to speak with members of the press, both those of the state’s two largest and most influential dailies, the Post and Courier and The State, as well as the state’s two alt-weeklies, The Free Times and the Charleston City Paper. On one occasion, Haley even ran away from reporter Renee Dudley.
9. Nikki Haley, as governor, repeatedly deleted important emails in violation of state Freedom of Information Act laws. Her immediate staff did the same. The Governor’s Office also claims that no emails were sent between Haley and her chief of staff Tim Pearson between Nov. 1, 2011, and Nov. 30, 2011.
10. Nikki Haley has refused to release the contents of her Legislative hard drive.
11. Nikki Haley fired noted South Carolina businesswoman Darla Moore from the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees and replaced her with a campaign contributor. Haley then claimed that Moore was let go because she failed to meet with the governor on the date that the two had agreed to. Later it was discovered that Haley had already mailed Moore her termination letter prior to the date of the agreed upon meeting.
13. Nikki Haley has repeatedly lied about the timing in which she first learned that a reporter was working on a story about her alleged inappropriate physical relationship with former colleague and confidant Will Folks. In her memoir and elsewhere, Haley claims the allegations were a response to news that she had jumped from last place to first place in the 2010 SCGOP gubernatorial race. However, text messages between Haley’s chief of staff Tim Pearson, and others, indicate that Haley knew about the impending article well before the poll was conducted.
14. Nikki Haley called Fox affiliate WACH a tabloid news station after they aired an interview with Will Folks.
15. Nikki Haley’s approval rating among South Carolina’s is routinely less than Obama’s nationwide.
16. Nikki Haley once claimed that half of South Carolina’s workforce was high on drugs while the other half was stupid.
17. Nikki Haley noted that during a fundraiser at a law firm in Atlanta that no one associated with the Georgia State Ports Authority was in attendance. They were. Haley then claimed that representatives from Motorola and GE were at the meeting when they weren’t. The meeting in question reportedly led to a directive by Haley to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to reverse a decision denying a water permit to the Georgia Ports Authority, a move that would doom a planned South Carolina port. The permit was later approved.
18. Nikki Haley once called one Democratic opponent the “legislator of Five Points.” Five Points is the heart of Columbia’s bar scene. The legislator, H. Boyd Brown, had previously been denied entrance to the Governor’s Mansion for an annual bi-partisan cookout.
19. Nikki Haley once claimed that she would personally drive every individual needing a Voter ID to the DMV to get a license.
20. Nikki Haley brought racial harmony to her third-grade class, according to a dubious anecdote in her memoir. Haley writes:
“We were noticeably different. My father wore a turban. They didn’t know what to think of him. (microphone problems) It was hard for all of us, but the one thing my parents always said was don’t worry bout the differences. Remind people how you’re similar. So that was really how we dealt with it.
We were on the kickball field and that was the thing we did in third grade — all run around and play kickball. All of a sudden, I went out one day and there were two groups and one was a group of black girls and one was a group of white girls and they stood and I was standing in the middle and they said, we’re not going to play — because I said, are we going to play? — and they said no, we’re not going to play until you pick one.
I said, pick what? They said you have to pick a side. Which are you? Are you black or are you white? And I said, I’m brown. They said no, you have to pick.
And I went and I grabbed the kickball and I ran and they started running after me and before you know it, we were playing kickball again.
21. Nikki Haley is a thin-skinned narcissist with a Borderline-Pollyanna disorder who will gladly abandon her principles and backstab her one-time allies if it means getting some face time on Fox News or a fashion spread in Vogue magazine. Love Best of Charleston? Help the Charleston City Paper keep Best of Charleston going every year with a donation. Or sign up to become a member of the Charleston City Paper club.