I don’t get this:
South Carolina state Rep. Nikki Haley cruised to the Republican nomination for governor tonight, a victory that makes her not just the frontrunner for the office this fall but a likely national GOP star.
Haley crushed Rep. Gresham Barrett in the runoff race, an expected result given that she took 49 percent of the June 8 primary vote — narrowly missing the chance to win the nomination outright. The Associated Press called the runoff race for Haley at 8 p.m. eastern time.
She was barely the most popular Republican candidate for Governor, having had to win a run-off to even become the nominee. She’s spent less time as a Governor than Sarah Palin, because… she has not even won the race yet. But already Cilizza predicts she will be a national GOP star.
On the basis of what, Chris? And isn’t that what they said about another certain Sout Carolina politician?
Ash Can
Methinks someone’s seeing starbursts.
Will
She hides the crazy behind a pretty face, and she controls an important early Presidential primary state. That’s star material.
debbie
Oh, please. They recently turned a certain Massachusetts Democratic candidate’s win into a victory for the GOP.
EconWatcher
Well, she got 49% in the first round, with her nearest competitor at 22%, and only had to do the run-off because she didn’t quite hit the 50%. Also, too, she’s very attractive and therefore at least VP material. So you’re all wet on this one, Cole.
El Cid
@Ash Can: Yup. The sex fantasies involving Haley, turbans and kirpans write themselves.
BarbF
The biggest reason she’ll be a ‘star’ is how important South Carolina is in choosing presidential nominees. Every candidate will be kissing her ass in Macy’s window.
robertdsc
She already has national attention because of the “sexytime” affair angle. that’s why she’s gonna be a star. That she won the nom is a bonus.
It’s stupid, but all things GOP are stupid these days.
dmsilev
@El Cid:
Fixed, because you *know* that’s what Rich Lowry et al. are thinking about right now.
dms
Hunter Gathers
1. The doe-eyed look that GOPers have patented.
2. She converted from her mother and father’s heathen religion to full blooded Christian Crazy.
3. Dropped her heathen given name and now goes by ‘Nikki’.
4. Has (supposedly) fucked half of registered GOPers in the state, which means Cilizza might have a shot at getting laid outside of a $200 hand-job from the girls at Scores.
5. Being a converted heathen, she has permission to call our half heathen POTUS a nigger without being tarred as a ‘racist’.
6. Sarah Palin said so.
MattF
There’s an aspect of the fluffery that make sense: Republican leadership is so weak and so wacky that anyone who has an air of normality is an instant star. But I agree that it’s mostly ‘look at the important person I’m praising’ bullhockey.
Punchy
On the basis that the SC Prez Primary is so important, that every polly east of Hawaii will be sucking her nipples (is that the proper female equivalent?) trying to get her stamp of approval…..
debit
@Punchy: I think you mean the clitoris. Jesus, Punchy, no wonder you never get laid.
Michael
I hate South Carolina. It is a shithole, and the retrograde assholes who run it and pull the strings of shills like naughty Nikki (and who have run the place into the ground) are trying to make the rest of the country into a similar-style plantation.
Just count me as a “self-hating white”.
Josh
I actually believe Palin turned out to be a big disappointment for them, but they have to keep the lie alive so they pretend like she really still matters.
That, I believe, is the practical thinking that backs up Silver’s statistics about her having a shot at the Presidential primaries.
Haley is another story, though. I haven’t followed this narrative very closely because, frankly, I don’t care. It’s just another in a long line of phonies. Whatever the Republicans decide to do, I will rest easy at night with a knowledge that it was based in sheer stupidity and cynicism.
Without having to read the news.
tomvox1
Something about an odious message being delivered by a (semi-) pretty face makes the MSM pay attention. If Bachmann, Palin, the Fox hostettes, etc looked like Virgina Foxx, their everyday vile pronouncements would barely be covered and certainly not with respect. It’s probably why Angle’s getting hammered for being a wacko: not good looking enough to be a “GOP star” & give the media a woody.
steviez314
It’s the same thing with Chris Christie and Scott Brown.
All you have to do is win one primary or election now in the GOP and you’re considered presidential material.
This tells you what they really think about Huckabee, Romney, Gingrich, Palin, etc—old news.
El Cid
@dmsilev: thanks for that morning ‘eeeew’
El Cid
@Michael: Hey, you’ll always have Mississippi.
Comrade Javamanphil
Shorter Cilizza: The GOP has no bench so I’m
fluffingscouting the draft picks.stuckinred
@Michael: Edisto island is nice.
dmsilev
@El Cid: My pleasure, and remember, it’s never too early to start drinking heavily…
dms
Mary G
Some of the media seem to be buying into the GOP’s “Look at all the great women candidates, we’re so going to get the mama-grizzly soccer mom/men susceptible to starbursts vote this fall” meme.
As an incurable optimist, I choose to believe voters aren’t quite that dumb. The same ugly, hateful words that came out of Dick Cheney’s mouth now spew from Sarah
Palin’s Twitter feed, and her approval ratings get lower and lower.
frankdawg
2 reasons,
1 has already been mentioned, as a Vagina-American she has instant credibility in a party that hates Vagina-Americans’ (see also: Mikey Steel)
but the other reason is, if you make enough of these predictions eventually one or two of them will come home & you can parade around telling everyone at the DC cocktail parties that YOU saw it coming! YOU are so insightful! YOU have your finger on the pulse of Real America ™.
Hes not fluffing her so much as hoping to be able to fluff himself some day.
Personally I wish the whole DC media would go fluff itself ;)
60th Street
Looking forward to all the teabaggers and anchors on FOX referring to her continuously by her given name, Nimrata Nikki Kaur Randhawa, from now on and, of course, the birth certificate. We’ll need to see that.
Rod Majors
She’s a “star” for the same reasons as Palin and Jindal are/were the next big thing…they are not stuffy old white guys AND they are Republicans. They want their own Hillary and Barack to play with. Hell, with Haley she is Hillary and Barack all in one…she’s a shoe-in! That and the political media is pathetic and throw around terms like “star” and “phenom” like dollar bills @ a strip club.
salacious crumb
I kinda wish the whole raghead story had stuck with her. I would have liked to know what she thought of Jakey Knotts insulting her heritage. You don’t get this far up the Southern Republicans ranks without dissing your own kind in order to make the good ‘ol Southern folks happy. She never did denounce what Jakey said. She gave up on her religion and “found” God to appeal to the southern white christians. Whats next? Start racially profiling all brown folks on suspicion they are illegals? I think she would approve.
Punchy
@debit: Young grasshopper, so much to learn. It’s late June, in South Carolina, prolly 90+F plus humid as hell. A trip south to do as you suggest is a fool’s errand. Unless your nasal cavities and perhaps taste buds are shot.
Meanwhile, everyone, enjoy that breakfast!
Waynski
Apparently we’re destined to be ruled by airhead bimbos. Bring on the Brawndo! And you’re all fags also too.
AnnaN
Cause she’s purty, gots herself a porny name, and has teh sex with lots of guys.
I do believe the electorate’s thinking can be summed up by this quote from Four Weddings and a Funeral, “I think I’ve got an in there.”
Jim
At various times in the past month Bobby Jindal has been touted by the NYT as a rising star in the GOP for being heavily involved in responding to the oil spill in the Gulf while Haley Barbour has been touted by the NYT as a rising star in the GOP for ignoring the oil spill in the Gulf. It doesn’t matter what these people do – they’re all rising stars.
GVG
On the basis that the GOP is so short on the bench that anyone who gets in the news repeatedly is perceived by the masses as a leader. Also observation that the much smaller than in the past potential GOP voter seems to like a National Inquirer Hollywood sex scandal type to read about. Its like that party is really just Fox TV stars and doesn’t have anything to do with issues or running the country. winning the TV ratings sweep is not equal to winning elections.
what I’m afraid of is that his guess is right. I hope that means the GOP won’t actually win many general elections.
frankdawg
@tomvox1:
I think you have hit on something. That makes sense if you divide the female GOP wingnuts into two groups, those that get coverage & those that do not, they break exactly on the eye-candy scale.
I didn’t think it was possible to have even less respect for the assclowns in charge of our national discourse but I guess that scraping sound is not the bottom of the barrel but the earth underneath the barrel.
debit
@Punchy: Your logic is sound. I bow to the master.
Ron E.
When the existing choices are Palin, Gingrich, Romney, and Huckabee, then anybody new inevitably is going to look good.
Steve R.
The conservatives have been looking for people who can put a smiley face on savage policies, hence the eagerness to turn to women. They know the Boehners and McConnells don’t play so well and if you can get a nice looking woman to deny abortion rights and slash the social safety net, so much the better.
I don’t know enough about Haley to say what she’ll do once in office, but in the sound bites I’ve seen she comes across very well – no Jindal she. Some of the fuss may be warranted.
60th Street
@Steve R.:
minor edits…
some other guy
Tits.
SASQ.
John S.
@Steve R.
Just because she hides the crazy behind a smile doesn’t mean she isn’t crazy. When you’re the favorite choice of Palin and Tea Party Inc., you HAVE to be crazy. That’s what the people voting for her expect. Actually, they demand it.
matoko_chan
Haley is just a fuckable Bobby Jindal. Like Palin, she gives the old white guys wood.
thats all.
a token.
she isn’t going to pull in the hindu vote even…which is .000001 % of the South Carolina electorate.
Bulworth
Yeah, kinda funny how that happens.
matoko_chan
@Jim: truedat.
amg Chris Christie is giving AllahP wood.
Someone needs to point out Christie is eff-ay-tee FAT.
He can run for president when he loses a hundred pounds.
salacious crumb
@matoko_chan: you mean Bobby Jindal gives the old white guys wood?
Waynski
@salacious crumb: Well Larry Craig and Mark Foley prolly.
Bulworth
@matoko_chan:
Only mayors who name streets after a heathen president are fat.
Keith
The future is
CaoBrownHaley.The spaghetti will stick one day.
Taterstick
@Michael:
Go fuck yourself.
I was born in and currently live in South Carolina. I am freakishly liberal compared to most people in this country, much less this state. There are plenty of people like me down here. We may be outnumbered, but comments like yours are no better than the ones I hear from the backassward conservative christian taliban here. In fact, it’s worse.
bemused
There’s no doubt that many a drooling knuckledragger only went to Palin rallies to pant at Sarah & probably didn’t hear a word she said. Some of the videos I saw showing those guys leering at Palin were pretty creepy. Haley probably gets her share of fantasizing fans.
I remember when conservative women & some men too thought Donald Rumsfeld & Fred Thompson were sexy. Oy.
bjacques
She’s a pretty face, probably not stupid, and at least looks like America.
Come the 2012 primary, she’ll worship Teh Crazy to keep the po’buckers on her side. It won’t work because the national GOP’s racist base will still see her as one of “those people” they lost their jobs to or who answer the phone when the credit card company charge them twice. She’ll end up under the wheels of the Juggernaut. It’ll be Thune/McConnell or some other pair of white dipshits. Okay, maybe the VP will be some super-rightwing Hispanic.
2012 is an eternity away.
JGabriel
John Cole:
You’re kidding, right?
First, Haley is Indian. In a party that is regularly accused of being racially insensitive and too white, she provides counter-evidence and an opportunity. The GOP has pretty much lost the Hispanic vote over the last 5 years, due to the nativist bigotry of its base; Haley can serve as an appeal to Indian and other South Asian immigrants.
That the GOP is also perceived as anti-woman (correctly), makes Haley a two-fer.
The fact that Haley’s pretty means she’s telegenic — she’ll get lots of media coverage if she wants it, and probably even if she doesn’t.
The rumors of affairs make Haley even more appealing to the brigade that fantasizes about Palin, because that gives them the feeling that maybe they have a shot with Haley.
So, Haley will be a star on the basis of her perceived assimilation, the token diversity she provides, her “dusky Indian beauty” and the all the advantages it brings.
The only question is whether Haley will be Bachmann-Palin-Overdrive Crazy Wingnut type of star, a scandal ridden female Mark Sanford type, or a more professional political type like Snowe, Collins, and Kay Bailey Hutchinson.
.
Bulworth
Has Nikki Haley resigned yet? Insisting on staying in the race through the general election and to accept a role as governor would be too much “politics as usual”. Also, too.
fucen tarmal
i wonder if nikki will show up at a south carolina game in the classic t-shirt “a true cock fan”
Dog is My Copilot
@60th Street: I was thinking the very same thing this morning when I heard on NPR that she had won the Republican nomination for governor… I want to see her birth certificate.
grandpajohn
Lots of good comedy from the media and the teapartiers in elevating her to be the next supernova of the GOP when before this election, very few people in SC even knew who the hell she was. As a SC lifelong resident if find all this talk hilarious. until this election, I had never heard of her . In SC it seems that the bar is set rather low to qualify for stardom. But as they say in the land of the blind , the one eyed person is king and considering the levels of inanity and insanity she was running against it’s not that shocking. Actually Barrett was probably the sanest one of the bunch.
The only saving grace of the descent into craziness here is SC, is the fact that the office of governor in SC has little real power, it is one of the weakest in terms of Governor power in the country. So for all the insanity of Sanford, he actually was not able to ruin the state, because his own republican dominated legislature constantly over rode his vetoes and did not pass his wacky legislation. Since Haley is a slightly less wingnut version of Sanford, they will continue to do the same.
Gene108
She’s Sikh, not Hindu, so I don’t know why she’d bag the Hindu vote in the first place.
Any what’s been surmised here is pretty spot on.
She’s attractive and telegenic, which does matter. I don’t think Barack Obama would’ve gotten far in politics, if he had a high squeaky voice, like Mike Tyson, which didn’t match his body instead of his rich baritone.
I don’t see a Democrat winning state wide office in South Carolina. The D’s seem pretty dysfunctional in that state, since segregation ended.
South Carolina has been and always will be an ass boil on the rest of the South, from secession to now. If Republicans are pinning national hopes from politicians from that state, they must really be desperate.
flukebucket
GOP theme song
Gene108
The real questions about Nikki Haley, which no one is asking: What’s going to happen to her as she gets older and her looks start to go? Will she still have the same star power? Or will Republicans, like the Hollywood elitists they are, look for the next hot up and comer?
If people have Presidential ambitions for her, she better run before the wrinkles set in is all I’m trying to say.
chopper
@some other guy:
GTFO!
Allison W.
She’s purrrrty?
grandpajohn
@Taterstick: This
If more of our good northern liberal brothers would support us and the 50 state policy we might be able to change some of this, especially with the influx of people moving here from blue states and with the rapid Hispanic population growth in the south, eventuallythe tide could be turned, but calling all of us hicks, rednecks and klansmen is not the way to win friends and influence people.
More of our blue state like minded folks should remind themselves of the biblical admonition about casting the beam from ones own eye before removing the mote from thine brothers eye. Not all Redstaters are rednecked klansmen and many Bluestaters do have the rednecked klansmen ideology
Roger Moore
@Comrade Javamanphil:
This. The GOP is so devoid of talent that anyone who shows the slightest hint of ability is an instant rising star. This should have been clear from the truly pathetic lineup for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, and blindingly obvious from the instant popularity of Sarah Failin’.
taterstick
@grandpajohn: It drives me fucking crazy. People not from the south get pissed off when their particular part of the country is criticized or disparaged (Fruits and nuts, elite east coast liberal, etc.) and so they turn around and do the same thing, only worse.
And we all know that everything bad in this world can be easily blamed on Mississippi!! ;-)
Cassidy
Apparently she puts out. That’s always a plus, I guess.
I got nothing.
Gene108
@Allison W.: Eh…I’d do her…but I wouldn’t be having fantasies about her…
Mark
@JGabriel –
I see part of the parallel – Snowe and Collins are just empty suits – but they don’t seem very wingnutty. Did you mean something else?
Paul L.
Pot/Kettle on Media Matters level Fluffing
Joe “All you have to do is to go down Union Street with me in Wilmington and go to Katie’s restaurant…” Biden
Waynski
@grandpajohn: and Taterstick. This. It’s not helpful or productive to trash other states. However, Grandpa John, if you want to convince elitist Northern liberals they should work with you, quoting scripture is prolly not the best opening argument. Just saying.
Hunter Gathers
@grandpajohn:
That’s funny, there’s a guy down the street from me who has a Confederate Flag (the flag of treason) in his window.
I live in Illinois.
Stupidity knows no geographical restraint. It’s everywhere.
El Cid
@Hunter Gathers: The heyday of the Klan was 1920s Indiana, though that was mainly wrt anti-Catholicism, anti-immigration, and anti-Semitism, so, things aren’t always as people thought they were.
Alice Blue
@bjacques: “Po’buckers”? I haven’t heard that term since I was a kid down here in Georgia. Where you from?
Seanly
@salacious crumb:
There is a split in the GOP here in SC. Sanford and Halley are in the libertarian yet cultural conservative camp. Knotts is an ole time racist cracker conservative. I think part of the issue is that the ole time GOP realizes the tax & budget cutting and shifting of tax burden onto the poor plays well during campaigns, but actually instituting it is eventual suicide.
The entire GOP here though is so nuts & so retrograde that I will gladly cast my vote for the fishy Democratic Senate candidate Greene over DeMint.
Hunter Gathers
@El Cid: There’s STILL Klan in southern Indiana. Around Jasper. They mostly just exist to kick around the hispanics who mow their lawns and burp their babies. Indiana isn’t known as America’s Armpit for nothing, you know.
fucen tarmal
@taterstick:
mississippi excreted elvis presley into the world, for this they must pay.
while its true that even in the most hardbitten red state has up to 40% blue or at least reasonable people, and the reverse can be true, just look at massachusetts for some hardcore conservatives in an otherwise blue state, at some point it goes to descrete measures such as the political infrastructure, the in-state money and influence, the proverbial ground game…its these parts the democrats are often woefully lacking in some of the red-state strong holds….
Egan Foote
I believe Rubio was a “rising star” as well… now it looks like he’s going to get his ass kicked.
grandpajohn
Yes , that is the point, people should realize that even here in SC, for national elections the democratic candidate will usually get around 40- 45 % of the vote so that means that you only have to swing 10-15% of the electorate not all of them.
Hell we don’t vote enmass any more than a blue state does. It appears to me that the 50 state strategy worked pretty well in 08 so why the hell would we abandon it now.
Of course for the democratic party it seems to be standard policy to abandon what works.
EarBucket
Haley’s another Sarah Palin, only prettier, smarter, and a minority. She scares the hell out of me.
matoko_chan
@Gene108:
lol, she’s BROWN…..browns all look alike to the teatards.
Haley and Jindal are what we call cobo’s …….colonized browns.
The truth is hispanics and latinos loathe Arizona’s immigration law so much that 500 per week are registering democrat. Can’t turn off the crazy even when its gnawing them a second asshole.
Obama decided the day it passed he would go for the judicial strikedown. He was jus’ waiting to get closer to november so he can use the Supreme Court challenge to fire up his base.
Its going to be a Bloody November I think.
matoko_chan
Aziz:–I think we need a new term for people like Reihan Salaam and Tunku Vadarajan: “Cobos” (Colonized Browns).
Norwegian Shooter
Didn’t anybody else get the fluffing reference?
@frankdog comes the closest:
He can’t fluff her and if he can fluff himself someday, he’s in a hugely exclusive club! (all puns intended)
FlipYrWhig
OK, to be as shallow as possible, I don’t see what all the fuss is about Nikki Haley’s supposed attractiveness. She looks like a local news anchor on the 5 PM show on a small market. The glamor factor that Palin obviously played up (and that the media continues to play up for her) IMHO does not apply to Haley.
rea
Poor South Carolina–too small to be a country, too large to be a lunatic asylum.
Phoenix Woman
You mean Mark Sanford? He was supposed to be on the GOP’s short list for 2012, right up until he hiked the Appalachian Trail.
WRT John Edwards — The news media really hated him after he went populist in a lefty way. They kept painting him as richer than God while not extending a similar focus to the Republican presidential candidates, all of whom were richer than him. I’m just amazed that he didn’t implode sooner — and if any of the Republicans had received the
hate-fueled stalkingscrutiny he did, they would have had to run Bush’s dog Barney because nobody else would have survived the primaries.pseudonymous in nc
Haley’s probably a lock for election, absent some craziness. But the SC legislature — the GOP good ol’boy establishment — is going to treat her like Sanford, but without as much respect.
That doesn’t mean she’s not going to be courted like a Jane Austen protagonist for 2012, but it does mean that there are going to be lots of professional dirty-tricksters during primary season who have no allegiance to her.
tesslibrarian
@FlipYrWhig: local news anchor in a small market is way hotter than SC is accustomed to with their politicians. Until now, Lindsey has probably been their prettiest.
I spent 10 years in SC growing up, and trust me, they see in her someone they can show off to the country as their pretty girl. And maybe push her to try for a higher office, ‘cos runnin’ the state, honey, that’s man’s work.
Comrade Kevin
@matoko_chan:
Nice try. You jumped to the conclusion in your comment above.
SFAW
Of course we did, chile. We’re just too classy to show that we know what it means.
Or somethin’. Also.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Taterstick: Tater, I live here, too. And you and I would probably get along well talking politics (as long as we didn’t talk too loud to offend those down the bar from us.)
Having said all that, I’ve gotta say that South Carolina IS feeling an awful lot like a shithole currently. And all I can see are retrograde assholes for as far as I can see.
Rishi Gajria
“On the basis of what, Chris?”
Because she’s Hot and Sexy. And she’s pretty smart too. But I’m sure Chris wasn’t considering that.