Free Republic

The times they are a changing in South Carolina. And by extension, in this country. A South Carolina tea party endorsed Republican, Tim Scott, who is black, received a whopping 69% of the run off vote for representative against Paul Thurmond, the white son of the late Senator Strom Thurmond (D for most of his life-SC), a man who symbolized and represented the ugly segregationist south. Given the make up of the district he represents, according to the South Carolina Star Tribune, Scott is now poised to become the nation's first black GOP congressman since 2003.Scott, 44, owns an insurance...

Haley Makes History in South Carolina Primary Runoff Victory June 22, 2010 State Rep. Nikki Haley, an Indian American woman, smashed a glass ceiling in South Carolina politics Tuesday by winning her bid to represent the Republican Party in November's gubernatorial race. Haley is the first South Carolina woman to lead a major party ticket and will face Democratic state Sen. Vincent Sheheen to succeed term-limited Gov. Mark Sanford. There is already talk of a possible vice presidential campaign in 2010.As an Indian-American woman from an early primary state, she would bring a combination of diversity and conservatism that many...

The elections of Nikki Haley, who is poised to become the first female/first Indian governor of South Carolina and Tim Scott, poised to become the second black Republican congressman to serve in Congress (and who won against a segregationist's son, Paul Thurmond) were momentous and historical for all the obvious reasons... That being said, I do not expect the lamestream media to give these stories as much coverage as they deserve mainly because their "conservatives want segregation back" mantra is quite frankly the only age-old tactic liberals have to rely on for any hope of keeping their shackles on the...

She was born in small-town South Carolina, attended South Carolina schools and won election three times to the state legislature. But in her surging campaign for governor, Nikki Haley has been tested far more than other candidates on her cultural connections to the state. Mrs. Haley, 38 years old, is an Indian-American, born into the Sikh faith, who converted to Christianity as an adult. Her background has prompted some voters to seek assurances that she is committed to her Christian faith and understands the feelings among some about the state's Civil War history.

<p>2010 is shaping up to be an excellent year for conservatives, who are leading in most of the races around the country for the November midterm elections.</p> <p>A brief panoramic view of the various campaigns will reveal that voters are clearly intent on making significant changes to Congress this year.</p>

Pickens County GOP Chair Phillip Bowers — a co-chairman of the rival Gresham Barrett campaign — says that Haley, a Christian who was born to Sikh immigrants, “can’t seem to make up her mind about her faith.”… “It’s not my place to question her faith, but I do question her honesty,” the county party chairman writes. “If anyone finds the truth, please let me know.” “Again, I’m not questioning her faith,” he repeats, “but I absolutely can’t stand a liar.”

It’s a pink-letter year for Republican women. This season, more female GOP candidates than in any previous election cycle are running for national and state offices, beating the previous record year – 1994 – by 38 women. That’s a surprising development for the GOP. After all, this is the Party that as recently as last fall launched a “Republican Accomplishments” webpage and failed to include a single female representative, senator, Supreme Court justice, governor, cabinet member, or vice presidential candidate. Many would like to give the credit for the sudden rise of GOP women to that VP candidate. After all,...

“We’ve watched her carry the water, so to speak, for the governor on numerous occasions. On the other hand, Gresham did not,” Sandifer said. The state’s business community — led by the state Chamber — is raising some of the same concerns, and the confrontational tone of Haley’s latest ad has only raised the level of alarm. “Those discussions have been had in regards to whether or not she can get along with the General Assembly,” Chamber President Otis Rawl said. Haley has a widely acknowledged adversarial relationship with legislative leaders, Rawl said, and that “has led to discussions about...

In 1992, the feminists in the media rejoiced at what they called “The Year of the Woman,” when ten Democratic women (and one Republican) were running for the Senate in the aftermath of Anita Hill’s unproven sexual-harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas. Just two years before, seven Republican women (and two Democrats) ran. But the media yawned. In 1992, the evening newscasts aired 29 stories exclusively devoted to women Senate candidates. In 1990, there was one...on election night. In 1992, the morning shows interviewed women Senate candidates on 26 occasions. In 1990, there were zero interviews. This was all about the...

What Tuesday’s results demonstrated, convincingly, is that America is now a country where social conservatives are as comfortable as liberals with the idea of women in high office. More strikingly, they’re comfortable voting for working mothers — for women publicly juggling careers and family obligations in ways that would have been unthinkable for the generations of female leaders, from Elizabeth I’s Virgin Queen down to Margaret Thatcher’s Iron Lady, who were expected to unsex themselves before being entrusted with the responsibilities of state… In this environment, it isn’t a surprise that women in the public square now disagree about everything...

(CNN) - South Carolina gubernatorial hopeful Nikki Haley will pick up a major endorsement Tuesday from one of her former rivals in the Republican primary – Attorney General Henry McMaster. McMaster campaign manager Trey Walker told CNN that the attorney general plans to formally back Haley’s bid in a press conference Tuesday morning at his campaign headquarters in Columbia. Haley’s sweeping victory in the four-way GOP primary last Tuesday ended McMaster’s gubernatorial ambitions, but the two Republicans maintained a friendly relationship throughout the race and spoke by phone several times in the wake of Haley’s win. McMaster finished in third...

When liberals can’t handle GOP women, they infantilize, sexualize, demonize, and dehumanize them. I diagnosed the Four Stages of Conservative Female Abuse a few years ago. Here’s how I described the 4th Stage: …the final stage of CFA is dehumanization. Conservative women aren’t real women according to the liberal feminist establishment’s definition. Remember when Gloria Steinem called Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a “female impersonator?” Or when curdled NOW leader Patricia Ireland instructed Democrats to vote only for “authentic” female political candidates? Or when Al Gore’s fashion consultant Naomi Wolf described the foreign-policy analysis of Jeane Kirkpatrick as being...

Contrary to numerous personal cheap-shots and rumors floated by supporters of Nikki Haley's gubernatorial candidacy, the Blogland isn't out to get her. In fact, the Blogland has stuck up for her plenty in the past, nor did we jump on the scandal bandwagon. But when she's misleading voters about her record, burying the issues in shop-worn allegations of some sort of "Columbia establishment" being out to get her, it's time for the truth to be told. There's a lot of difference between what Haley says, and what she's done, and the Blogland looks forward to presenting the evidence to support...

State Representative Nikki Haley is running stronger than her Republican Primary runoff opponent in the general election for South Carolina’s first open gubernatorial race since 1994. The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Haley picking up 55% of the vote over Democratic State Senator Vincent Sheheen, who earns 34% support. Five percent (5%) would choose some other candidate and six percent (6%) are undecided. Congressman Gresham Barrett earns 46% support over Sheheen’s 38%. However, 10% of voters would vote for some other candidate in this match-up and six percent (6%) are not sure.

Nikki Haley, the favorite to become the first governor of South Carolina who is neither white nor male, has always challenged established norms with her own brand of moxie. As a girl, her parents — the first Indian immigrants this small, working-class town had ever seen — entered Nikki and her sister in the Little Miss Bamberg pageant. The judges of the contest, one that crowned one black queen and one white queen, were so flummoxed that they simply disqualified Nikki and her sister, Simran — but not before Nikki, about 5, sang “This Land Is Your Land.” Ms. Haley,...

Revolution in California and political regime change come November has been a theme of mine for weeks. Tuesday night's big victories for Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina moved that agenda nicely down the field. And let me add to it. Following the Tuesday primaries, the mainstream media began calling this the year of the woman, pointing not only to Fiorina and Whitman in California, but to Sharron Angle in Nevada, Nikki Haley in South Carolina and Democrat Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas. But we need a qualifier here. This is really going to be the year of the women from the...

WHEN President George W. Bush signed the bill banning partial-birth abortion in 2003, supportive legislators gathered around for a photograph. All of them were men. Nancy Pelosi, then the House minority leader, called the image “a slap in the face to women across America.” My fellow pro-lifers winced at the picture — both because it offered Ms. Pelosi a political opportunity and because it reflected an enduring political weakness of our movement. American women are just as likely to be pro-life as American men, but few pro-life women have gone into politics. The Gallup organization recently concluded that “abortion polling...

PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. — Is this the year of the Mama Grizzlies? The answer is a clear, resounding maybe. Sarah Palin coined the phrase to describe an “emerging, conservative feminist identity” among Republican women running for higher office. Several female candidates who received her endorsement — or fit her definition — scored impressive victories in primary elections last Tuesday. Other Mama Grizzlies won tough primaries earlier this year or are running well in states that have yet to vote. Without a doubt, Republican women are more energized and enthusiastic than their Democratic counterparts this year, and Palin has a lot...

Photoshop is a nifty little tool. With the click of a mouse you can retouch a blemish or saw off a good chunk of someone’s hip bone. For the cover of their June 21 issue, the design team at Newsweek booted up the program to stick a shiny gold halo around Sarah Palin’s head. Below the heavenly photo of the former Governor, just underneath her prayer-clasped hands, sits a message scrawled across the page in Old English font: “Saint Sarah.” The cover image is just the gimmicky precursor to an accompanying feature that goes even further with the Christian allusion,...

The focus is 2010 but just a quick note and food for though: South Carolina plays a crucial role in GOP presidential nomination battles, Its known as the make or break for practically every candidate running; in fact, going back to 1980, every winner of the South Carolina presidential primary has gone on to capture the GOP nomination. It will only depends which state goes first, S.C. or FL in the pecking order to create momentum, which is pretty much what Primaries are all about....There was more than just simply aggressive attacks on Nikki Haley from the Good ole Boys;...