The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

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But the people in that base who propelled Haley to the governor’s mansion last year see the endorsement of the more moderate Romney as abandoning them — and giving them another reason to turn away from a governor whose approval rating has dropped to 34.6 percent.

Immediately after Haley announced her support Friday morning on “Fox and Friends,” her Facebook page lit up with accusations that the first-term governor was selling out her principles. Rush Limbaugh followed with a blistering broadside against her on his radio show Friday, leading a charge of conservatives nationally, in addition to locally, who accused her of selling out.

Tea party leaders in the state suggested that Haley will pay for Friday’s move with a primary in 2014 — provided she doesn’t win herself a spot on the ticket or another post in a Romney administration, as tea partiers and Republican operatives say must be the explanation for the decision.

“The overwhelming sense that I get from talking to people is deep betrayal,” said Karen Martin, the founder and organizer of the Spartanburg tea party, who has not endorsed a candidate. “She’s not going to be able to come back from this with the tea party. If there’s anybody credible who will run against her, I believe the tea party will support them wholeheartedly.”

Martin predicted that Haley will face trouble even before then in trying to push through a governing agenda that’s already put her at odds with her former colleagues in the GOP-controlled legislature.

“She’s just lost her credibility,” she said. “Anything that she tries to propose, most people in the past might not have looked too carefully at her, believing that she is a credible conservative. We’ve given her a pass on a few things, but that won’t happen any anymore.”

Limbaugh mocked the Haley endorsement, saying that it was more about her ambition than about conservative principles.

“Don’t misunderstand this,” Limbaugh said. “Of course she has a choice, but she really doesn’t have a choice, given her aspirations. It just means that we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Haley, though, insists she’s not worried.

Speaking to POLITICO after helping Romney draw more than the 425 people to a firehouse here on a rainy afternoon — a rare event when the former Massachusetts governor has drawn an overflow crowd at a campaign stop — Haley said she believed the tea partiers now upset would eventually see the wisdom of her decision.

“I have a great respect for the members of the tea party, and what I know is all South Carolinians make the decision that’s best for them,” Haley said while signing autographs at the event. “And so, that’s what I did today.”
There may be reason to be less concerned. Scott Huffmon, the director of the Winthrop Poll here, said Haley already has lost much of her tea party support, and that the percentage of South Carolina Republicans who identify themselves as tea partiers has shrunk since she surprised the state GOP establishment and won the 2010 primary for governor.

“It’s no longer a driving force, but it’s still a relevant force,” Huffmon said. “She’s had a few things that have caused tea-party support to not necessarily disappear, but not be as unified and excited to be behind her as it was in 2010. So her endorsement is by no means saying this is what the tea party has done.”

Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is betting her future on Mitt Romney’s, exhausting the support that Tea Partyers once supplied her.

The state’s first woman governor endorsed Romney in the state’s Jan. 21 Republican presidential primary, a decision that might vault her into national office or stall her career in Columbia, scorned by those who elected her.

“It was like your best friend took up with a really bad boyfriend,” said Karen Martin, 54, an organizer for the Tea Party chapter in Spartanburg County.

Haley, 39, was elected in 2010 as a champion of the movement that pushed states’ rights and fiscal rectitude. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she was an adversary of the Legislature’s good-old-boy network and became the first woman to run the state that ranks 50th in female representation, said Karen Kedrowski, political science chairwoman for Rock Hill’s Winthrop University.

That such a politician would endorse Romney, whom Newt Gingrich has called someone trying to “pretend he’s a conservative,” was jaw-dropping, Haley’s Tea Party and Libertarian supporters said in interviews this week.

Martin, whose county went for Haley by 59 percent in 2010, got six calls from allies in an hour after Haley announced her decision last month, she said. “People were angry, disappointed, betrayed, hurt,” she said. She portrayed the rift as a family fight.

Cares about the wealthy.

Over a hundred hand-wringing social conservative Republican leaders met today at a Texas ranch. They, perhaps too late, sought to find - and unite behind - an alternative to Mitt Romney. After 3 rounds of balloting, Rick Santorum got 85 votes to Newt Gingrich's 29. Rick Perry from Texas got none as participants decided he is unelectable.

as a lifelong Republican, the GOP is the party of personal liberty

Blistering, David.

mormons do not believe in the jesus of the bible.