May Want To Put The Corks Back In On That Champagne

Turning back to the Palmetto State, the fact that Nikki Haley won the GOP gubernatorial primary means she's already won in November, yes?  Not so fast...

South Carolina business leaders are sticking with a decision not to endorse state GOP gubernatorial nominee Rep. Nikki Haley as her campaign Wednesday called the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce "a big fan of bailouts and corporate welfare."

State chamber board member Ted Speth said Wednesday that he's backing Democrat Vincent Sheheen because the next governor needs to get along with the GOP-controlled Legislature, something that has been missing for eight years under Republican Gov. Mark Sanford. They "certainly have not had much harmony there within the past eight years," said Speth, managing shareholder in Ogletree Deakins, one of the state's largest law firms.

The chamber endorsed Sheheen, who won the Democratic nomination, earlier this year along with Republican U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett. On June 18, days before Barrett lost a runoff with Haley, the chamber decided it would stick with that decision even if Haley won. This year's endorsements were the first ever in a governor's race for the state chamber.

"These candidates had a particularly favorable focus on business," said Reed Byrum of The Byrum Innovation Group Inc. in Greenville.

Part of Haley's campaign stump talk has been that she would go into legislators' districts and hold them accountable with their voters if they didn't go along with reforms she seeks.

"I just don't think that's going to bring the type of cooperation that we need," said Otis Rawl, the chamber's chief executive officer. "That's a slippery slope when you're talking about getting things done."

Not all the chamber's members are happy with the ongoing Sheheen endorsement.

For instance, Mark Buyck Jr., a Florence lawyer who runs one of the state's oldest law firms, resigned his chamber membership. "We cannot lend our name to an organization which behaves as the chamber did in this endorsement without input from its membership," said Buyck. He said the decisions were made by the board, not the chamber's membership.

Haley's campaign shrugged off the endorsement.

"The state Chamber is a big fan of bailouts and corporate welfare, so it's no surprise that they would prefer a liberal like Vincent Sheheen over a conservative like Nikki Haley," Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said.

The fact of the matter is your average state, local, or nation Chamber of Commerce really is a fan of corporate welfare and big bailouts.  Haley's people are correct.  But the SC Chamber backing Democrat Shaheen means he's not out of the race, and I think you're going to see a lot more of this disconnect where Country Club and Chamber of Commerce Republicans are going to be fed to the Tea Party buzzsaw and will have to turn more and more to the Democrats for support.

I'm not saying that's a good thing.  Politics makes strange bedfellows however.  The Hoffman Effect is making the Mitt Romney wing of the GOP persona non grata, and at this point the Dems need all the help they can get.