The Buzz | National media’s love affair with Haley waning?

National media’s love affair with Haley waning?

The bloom is off the rose apparently.

Or maybe it’s several roses.

National Review magazine – which, the last time the Buzz checked, was considered conservative – has a critical piece on S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley in its latest edition.

Previously, Haley has been the darling of the national media – “classic Cinderella theater,” as National Review calls that coverage – even if many South Carolinians have a bad case of buyers’ remorse, according to a recent poll.

Those voters are not the only ones upset, however, according to the article by John Fund.

Former Gov. Mark Sanford – Haley’s one-time mentor, whose PAC saved Haley’s campaign with a $400,000 ad buy in 2010 – is critical of Haley in the piece.

Sanford had hinted at his unhappiness with Haley previously. But there’s nothing indirect about his comments to National Review.

Of her endorsement of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Sanford said: “I wonder if she’ll be more of a liability to Romney than she is an asset. She’s taken her eye off the ball and lost focus. ...

“She’s on the cover of national magazines, her book will be out in April – I think it can be confusing, and all this has led her to punt on some of the really big issues she ran on.”

(Hmmm, political comeback in the works? Maybe running against Haley in the next GOP primary for governor?)

Former Sanford communications director Chris Drummond is down on Haley, too. “She misled a lot of reformers. I regret my efforts to help her get elected,” Drummond told the magazine.

Haley’s onetime Tea Party allies are critical, as well.

“She is increasingly falling back in line with legislative leaders bent on preserving the old system,” Brit Adams, a Greenville area Tea Party activist, told Fund.

Talbert Black, another Tea Party activist, opined that Haley dropped issues that she campaigned on – “school choice and zero-based budgeting” –once she was elected.

Ashley Landess, president of the libertarian S.C. Policy Council, joins in the trashing, too. “(S)he hasn’t taken on the power structure like her allies hoped, but rather accommodated herself to it,” Landess told Fund.

The Buzz secretly has wondered if Columbia is big enough for both Haley and Landess, but gee, guys, tell us what you think.

(You know what they say: Catharsis is good for the soul.)

Back in the saddle

Former WIS television reporter and anchor David Stanton has returned to the State House in a new capacity.

Stanton has joined the lobbying team of Capitol Consultants. One of the best-known lobbying firms at the State House, its three dozen clients include several businesses; municipalities, including the town of Lexington; and teacher groups.

In legislative action

• STATE OF STATE | Haley asked legislators in her second State of the State address Wednesday to reduce income taxes, further clamp down on unions, restructure government and pass a loser-pays provision on civil lawsuits. Her speech focused on jobs, as she recognized a dozen companies that made job announcements for South Carolina in 2011, and declared the state is surging. As she promised, her speech contained no surprises. As for a new initiative, she told legislators she would unveil a job training program by month’s end. She also pushed legislators to reform the state’s pension system this year and pass a spending cap.

• PENSION REFORM | New age and service-length requirements in a proposal to reform South Carolina’s pension system may not apply to current employees after all. A House panel on Wednesday directed a consultant to recalculate how changes to its proposal would affect the system’s solvency. Last month, the subcommittee approved a draft proposal to require public employees to work 30 years and be at least 62 years old to draw full retirement benefits. Employees currently have to work 28 years for full retirement, and there are no age requirements. The drafted plan would have exempted employees within five years of retirement. But the panel may decide to apply the changes only to new hires. It may also let workers either work 30 years or retire at age 62, rather than meet both qualifications.

• CLEMSON BUDGET | Clemson University wants $5 million to begin hiring 86 faculty members as the school pursues its new mantra of divesting to invest, president James Barker told legislators Wednesday. Barker asked a House budget-writing panel for $12 million in additional money from recurring revenue. That includes $5 million for the first phase of a five-year hiring plan. The university has eliminated 550 positions over the last three years through buy-out offers and normal attrition, Barker said. He also asked for $46 million in one-time money for building programs, mostly to renovate two of the campuses’ oldest buildings.

• MERGING DISTRICTS | One of South Carolina’s poorest counties would become a single school district under a bill approved Thursday by the House. The House voted 84-0 to allow Marion County to finish combining its three school districts. The bill heads to the Senate. The districts are in the process of combining administrations. Their first countywide superintendent, Dan Strickland, officially took the helm last July. Legislation was needed to combine the districts’ financial operations. The bill would reduce the number of districts to 81 in the state’s 46 counties.

• TAX EVASION | State Rep. Harold Mitchell Jr. has been suspended from the South Carolina House after his indictment on felony charges. The Spartanburg Democrat can’t take any legislative action in committees or the House floor or conduct any official duties while he faces charges. The state grand jury’s indictment came after the Revenue Department claimed that Mitchell didn’t file state individual income tax returns on time between 2005 and 2008, filed delinquent returns in 2009 and tried to avoid paying $7,000 in state taxes.

The Associated Press