Nikki Haley is South Carolina's first woman governor

Nikki Haley makes history as the state's first non-white, female governor. (photo from Greenville News)

In national news: Tea Party rides to victory, nation on verge of anarchy. Infrastructure in dire peril. Cops and firemen deemed unnecessary as private security company business goes through the roof! Oh, sorry, getting ahead of myself...

But my predictions were correct, Haley took Sheheen by 65,000 votes in the largest SC turnout for a gubernatorial election ever.

Haley leads GOP Surge
By Ben Szobody • Staff writer • Published: November 03. 2010 2:19AM
Greenville News

South Carolina voters picked Nikki Haley to be the state's top executive Tuesday, boosting an Indian-American child of immigrants and political ally of Gov. Mark Sanford from a desk in the Legislature to the Governor's Mansion amid a conservative wave.

It caps a remarkable, 18-month rise in which Haley defeated a primary slate of establishment Republican figures, then an evenly funded opponent from one of the state’s prominent Democratic families.

More than 1.2 million people voted — the most ever for governor — and nearly 52 percent broke for Haley, giving her a 5-point, 65,000-vote margin over Democratic Sen. Vincent Sheheen.

It was the smallest margin of victory for a South Carolina governor since 1994 but also part of a broader Republican surge that girded GOP control in the state's General Assembly and recast Congress as a more conservative body.

Greenville, as it had for Sanford, delivered a major rush of votes to Haley late in the night after what had been a seesaw ballot count for much of the evening. She ended up easily carrying the Upstate while Sheheen picked up many of the rural Midlands and Pee Dee counties.

Translation: the rich white people I wrote about in my last post, carried her through. The poor black counties voted Democratic.

In a year of political meteors, Haley has already become an icon, smiling from the covers of magazines and highlighting European coverage of U.S. elections that swung in part on the tea party phenomenon, frustration with Washington and a female constellation of so-called “mama grizzlies” — all of which Haley harnessed on her way from fourth place in a crowded Republican primary to the state's top elected office.

It was a rise sparked by the endorsement of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and capped with her historic victory as both the first woman and first minority governor in the state’s history.

She told an enthusiastic crowd of supporters after midnight that the message of her campaign — a better economy, better schools and a more accountable government — was “simple.”

“To every citizen of South Carolina, regardless of how you voted, I'm going to get to work for you,” she said. “You've taken a chance on me. I will never stop trying to make you proud.”

Let's hope she remembers to pay her taxes, now that she has been elected. (/snark)

Worried.

And I will stay that way until the Tea Party era is over; by my humble estimation, between 3-6 years (depending on leadership capabilities and other related factors).

Mourning in America.