Memoir (Actually an ad for the Vice Presidential nod) By South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley Unites South Carolina Democrats and Republicans

In Their Charges That the Book is Full of Lies

One of the things that those aspiring to be chosen as the Vice Presidential nominee is to write a personal memoir.  For example Florida Senator Marco Rubio who has been in the Senate less than two years has moved up the publication of his life story to June, in order to better position himself for selection by Mr. Romney.  South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Governor for less than two years and non-entity before that has just published her life story and the reaction is probably not quite exactly what she wanted.

Gov. Nikki Haley’s new memoir, “Can’t Is Not An Option,” is untruthful or twists many events, a half-dozen S.C. politicians said last week.

Members of Haley’s own Republican Party — including the speaker of the S.C. House and a former lieutenant governor — say allegations against them are “absolutely not true” and “not true at all.”

Democrats, including Haley’s 2010 opponent in the governor’s race, describe the book as “fiction.”

[Full disclosure:  The Dismal Political Economist has not read this work; there is a limit to things he will do for this Forum.]

The book would appear to be half whine about how unfair everyone was to the Governor and half payback to everyone she feels was unfair to her.  If you believe her critics though, she really didn’t know much about government.

Haley repeatedly takes aim at House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, as the leader of a legislative club that worked against meaningful reforms she was pushing.

In one never-before-recounted anecdote, Haley writes that Harrell humiliated her during a meeting of House Republicans over her plan to introduce a bill requiring lawmakers to cast more on-the-record votes. (Haley’s signature bill, which helped win her Tea Party support, since has been passed into law.)

“In front of the entire caucus, he attacked me for daring to challenge the rules of the club,” Haley wrote of Harrell, whom she refers to only as “the speaker” in most of the memoir, only naming him near the book’s end. “It was clear he took my proposal as a personal challenge of him, and he responded in kind.”. . .

Harrell said Friday that Haley’s story is “absolutely not true.”

“She wanted us to have more roll-call votes and the reaction by me and several others was, ‘That’s fine,’ ” Harrell said.

Then, Harrell said, he explained to Haley that, under then-existing House rules, a bill could be moved to the contested section of the House calendar and automatically get a roll-call vote. “What was embarrassing to her was that she didn’t know the rules of the House,” Harrell said Friday. “We spent the next 10 minutes explaining the rules to her. She clearly didn’t understand.”

And yes she leaves out a little controversy and hypocrisy.

In the memoir, for instance, Haley says voters have a right to know who legislators, paid part-time for their service, “worked for in their day jobs. ... It breeds conflict of interest. The people deserved to know who paid us. Once they see ... people will understand why policy moves the way it does in Columbia.”

But, 60 pages later, Haley calls campaign questions about her own possible conflict of interests — taking $42,500 in what she refers to only as “consulting fees” from the Columbia engineering firm Wilbur Smith and holding a $100,000-plus-a-year job with Lexington Medical Center while it was seeking legislative approval to expand — “a nuisance issue” and “character assassination.”

Well you get the picture, and as for that VP nod, well we don’t expect to see Ms. Haley on the short list.  After all, one Sarah Palin a decade is enough.