South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley endorsed Mitt Romney for president today. She told Fox he's "someone who knows what it's like to lead and make a decision, not just to take a vote."
Governor Haley has been a conservative and Tea Party favorite, but it's hard telling what that endorsement will be worth. She's having a quite bad week in South Carolina. The Charleston Post and Courier has been reporting this week that Governor Haley dictated the outcome of a committee on health reform and then failed to release e-mail about it when the paper requested it under the Freedom of Information Act.
Haley supporter Ashley Landess remembered Ms. Haley's promise to "fight for accountability and transparency." From the Post and Courier:
"When you run on a platform of fully open, transparent government, you better be the most open elected official at the table every time without exception," said Landess.
For the record, the Haley administration says the governor's email messages "had not been retained." The governor's office did turn over some email from that period, reports Renee Dudley, but not the ones in which she dictates the outcome of the committee's work before the committee ever meets. The paper eventually got those emails from another state agency.
Video up top from WACH Fox News in Columbia, South Carolina. Listen for the "Merry Christmas" partway through, and then the elevator door.
(On the show: Fun with state politics.)