If you want a pretty good indication of the power of ideology in today’s Republican Party, check out the latest endorsement of front-runner Nikki Haley for the Republican gubernatorial nomination just before next Tuesday’s runoff:
So let’s get this straight … we know for a fact that S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley is lying through her teeth every time she denies our founding editor’s claim that she had an “inappropriate physical relationship” with him in the Spring of 2007. On top of that, we also know for a fact that her political career could very well go down in flames if (and more likely “when”) this ticking time bomb goes off …
And yet we’re endorsing her for the 2010 S.C. Republican gubernatorial nomination anyway?
Correct….
[T]he bottom line for S.C. taxpayers is that Haley would vote the right way on the S.C. Budget and Control Board, use her veto pen to reduce the size and scope of government and sign a universal parental choice bill which would (at long last) provide parents with real options and our flawed system with real, market-based accountability.
Yes, Haley has been endorsed by the web page of South Carolina blogger Will Folks, whose allegation of an affair with Haley turned the gubernatorial race upside down. Unless you buy the theory that Folks and Haley actually cooked up the whole J’accuse to preempt rumors about her sex life and make her a martyr, Folks’ endorsement looks like a powerful validator of the notion that being Right is more important than being right to today’s conservative activists.
There haven’t been any public polls on this race released since the June 8 primary, but a pre-primary poll by PPP that asked about a hypothetical Haley-Gresham Barrett runoff showed her up 51-35. This was before third-place finisher Henry McMaster endorsed Haley.
In North Carolina, where Democrats are having a Senate runoff on Tuesday, the only post-primary poll (again, by PPP) showed first-place primary finisher Elaine Marshall and DSCC favorite Cal Cunningham even at 36 percent with a large undecided vote. But that was more than a month ago, and given the likelihood of very low turnout, anything could happen. Marshall was endorsed by third-place finisher Ken Lewis, buttressing her advantage among African-Americans, and also by MoveOn.
And in Utah, whose primary is also on Tuesday, a poll taken for Mike Lee’s campaign showed him leading Tim Bridgewater in the Republican Senate race 39-30. Bridgewater, a hard-core conservative but in better standing than Lee with the GOP establishment, has been endorsed by defeated incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett and also by fourth-place finisher Cherilyn Eager.
In polling news, it’s a sign of the trouble that the long-time front-runner in the Florida Republican gubernatorial race, Bill McCollum, is experiencing with free-spending late-entering candidate Rick Scott that McCollum has released a poll showing them running dead even.
A new Sooner Poll of the Oklahoma Democratic gubernatorial race (the primary is on July 27) shows Attorney General Drew Edmondson holding just a one-point lead over Lt. Gov. Jari Askins.
Rasmussen has three new general-election gubernatorial polls out. In Texas, they show Rick Perry with a 48-40 lead over Bill White, although White has a somewhat better approval-disapproval ratio than the incumbent. In Tennessee, they show all three major Republican gubernatorial candidates with double-digit leads over Democrat Mike McWherter. And in Arkansas, Democratic incumbent Mike Beebe enjoys a 57-33 lead over Republican nominee Jim Keet, a slightly higher margin than he had in May.