Ron Paul, the Texas Republican Congressman who ran for President last year is a smart guy with ideas to which I can really relate. But – and this isn’t his fault – some of the people that follow him so fervently are not altogether as honest as Congressman Paul appears to be.
For instance, Paul’s South Carolina Field Coordinator in last year’s election was Ms. Amanda Moore of Charleston. Ms. Moore has some very sterling credentials for conservative activism and organization. She owns Liberty Belle Consulting in Charleston and is involved in myriad conservative/libertarian groups and activities. Good for her!
Ms. Moore is also a paid consultant to South Carolina gubernatorial candidate and Charleston-area State Senator Larry Grooms. A fine and noble thing.
In the contrived urination tournament between the two conservative campaigns for governor, Grooms’ and Lexington State Representative Nikki Haley’s, there has been a LOT of nonsense being cast about, mostly – as my sources offer – from the Grooms campaign.
Prominent among the attempts to smear Haley is the “assertion” that she is a Sikh, based on her Indian heritage. Of course, t’ain’t true. Ms. Haley is a Methodist, but such details are often overlooked in the heat of campaign politics. This was noted in a previous Spy post.
Well, ya take that stuff as it comes in politics, and though I don’t know that Ms. Moore has engaged in the whisperings about Ms. Haley’s religious affiliation, she isn’t, nonetheless, helping Grooms’ image very much.
Amanda Moore’s name came up in some conversations I’ve had with several folks spanning the Low Country, Midlands and Up State in addition to other research I’ve been doing. So, I emailed Ms. Moore to ask about her involvement with the Tea Party movement and her evaluations of the Haley and Grooms candidacies.
In reply, in addition to information about her activities, Ms. Moore criticized legislation Rep. Haley co-sponsored in 2006-7 and called her “hypocritical” for “touring with Sanford and acting like the queen of transparency.“ She then wrote:
I’m telling you this because you asked and I’m trying to stay above the political cuts and mud slinging by running a clean effective grassroots campaign for Larry Grooms.
OK. Not a thing wrong with all that … except…
C’mon! You KNEW there had to be an “except…”
Just three months ago, Ms. Moore offered her services to – Nikki Haley – for a fee, of course. The Haley campaign passed at which point Ms. Moore flipped and got hired by the Grooms campaign.
No – it’s not extortion or blackmail to say “hire me or I’ll besmirch you on behalf of another candidate.“
It IS disingenuous, though. I mean, HALEY is hypocritical? Ms. Moore liked her enough in July to want to work for her even though Haley co-sponsored legislation 2 and 3 years ago that she thought was unsavory? Amanda Moore is “trying to stay above the political cuts and mud slinging by running a clean effective grassroots campaign for Larry Grooms.“ That’s right there with “I did not have sex with that woman!” or wails of innocence from Classy Freddie Blassie!
And, my favorite, Ms. Moore also wrote that Grooms “has asked that we allow the mudslingers to take care of themselves and I will abide by his wishes.“
Go ahead. Laugh. I’ll wait…
I fully understand that Amanda Moore is small potatoes. And what someone says or writes to me is one thing, but when they become a public mercenary for a candidate because another candidate wouldn’t hire them, ya gotta wonder about that person’s principles. Wanting to make money is a fine principle and I’m all for it, but when that vocation is – supposedly – based on your political philosophy, there are certain ethical rules that apply. Or, at the very least, one’s conscious should kick in.
And keep in mind that she and others are doing this stuff under the umbrella of “grass roots,” Tea Parties, “save our republic” and other honest citizen-based efforts to snap South Carolina and the country back to it’s republic roots.
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As some of us are now speculating and confirmation is coming to light, we have been shammed by a few in the Grooms camp who have used the Tea Party participants. A Chris Sullivan used to work for Rick Quinn and Associates, a consulting firm for Henry McMaster, who now apparently is suddenly working for Grooms. Word is McMaster and Grooms have a deal whereby Larry Grooms is soley in this race to pull from Haley’s base. A typical political manuever, but they have used all tea party, 9/11, and constitutionalist as their pawns in this game. I will not play Amanda’s game. Our country and state are too precious to be played with!
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I am able to confirm some of this. It’s sad but true.
I know Amanda. She is a friend. She and I differ on who we support for Governor. I support Nikki, she supports Larry. She was a big fan of Nikki, and changed for reasons I am sure she will tell anyone who asks her. We have had our own heated discussions about this issue. I still hope to convince her that she has made the wrong choice. I like Larry, I just like Nikki better.
I say all of that to preface this: Amanda’s principles are not for sale. She is a true blue conservative-libertarian. The facts can be disclosed in such a way to make anyone look negative, which is what this article has done. I am sure the writer believes what was written, but I know better. Amanda’s principles are not for sale.
Thank you, Mr. Black. But the fact is that in July, Ms. Moore offered her services to Nikki Haley for $1,000 per month. When Haley turned her down, Ms. Moore immediately went to the Grooms campaign. How else might one characterize this?
Sadly, I am able to confirm that Rep. Haley was either of feeble mind, twisting truth or lying when she gave a nil response to the AP on the class of her China ticket. This combined with her refusal to utterly rebuke Gov. Sanford for many filthy illegal offenses against constitutents tells SC loudly and clearly that Rep. Haley is the last thing we need. Her majorly lacking moral leadership, atrocious decision making and all too familiar Sanfordish hypocrisy thankfully will not see the light of day past Lexington.
Haleys friends’ monotonous “one of us, non-good old boy” phony pandering is insulting if you happen to be a law abiding, truly cost conscious, integrity yearning Christian.
Saying you can confirm and proving it are altogether different. I can “say” I confirm that Barack Obama is an alien from Uranus. Proving it… nope.
So – other than odd opinion, what proof do you have about her airfare, “lacking moral leadership” and “atrocious decision making?” Examples, Scooter… give me examples!
I should have been more clear in my post above:
Amanda has a lot of energy and enthusiasm and we agree on a lot of things.
I can confirm some of the things she has said and I’m disappointed in the tactics their campaign has chosen.
I think we can and should all get along, pursue the positives between the people we support, and let the best man or woman win.
We’ve got monstrously big targets in bauerbarrettmcmastah who are funded with years of vote-selling and influence peddling. THEY are the targets we should be pursuing–as I have been consistently, I think.
(Despite what you may think, I am not paid by ANYONE–though I’m flattered that this very amateur activist and concerned citizen is mistaken for a paid flunky. I’m a big fat zero when it comes to power and influence and I’ll be lucky if I’m able to just survive through this depression.)
For me it’s all about REFORM and stopping the good ol’ boys. I’ve never included Grooms in that. It would be nice to not burn bridges between a lot of good folks out there who are really concerned about the corruption in the statehouse.
I think each of you are missing the point. Your support of Grooms while valid is being wasted on a sham. He has no intentions of winning, just pulling votes from the Haley camp. This has been confirmed by the McMaster camp on more than one occasion. Gromms’ actions also point to this fact. He doesn’t raise money, yet puts his own in to make it look like he is competing with Haley, he only attends events of the Tea Party. Very seldom any others. Thirdly, the attacks from his camp have solely focused on Haley’s ethnicity.no attention has been given to any other candidates. So my question is now to those of you who are supporting Larry, as I did for quite some time, what are you supporting when you hang your hat on Grooms? Ultimately it is a vote for McMaster…a far cry from the ideals we believe in.
Richard:
Even if that’s true–and it might be–I’m not saying it’s not–there are still a LOT of good people who are in the Grooms’ camp. They are full of passion and it’s good to have passion about something you care about. When the tactics used in support of that passion goes too far, however, it should and has been called out.
I can’t help but give them the benefit of a doubt no matter how misguided I think their choice is and no matter how much our choice for reform is unfairly and viciously maligned over absolutely nothing.
If you’re right about Grooms, it won’t be long before his money either runs out or, if it does not, its true source comes to light.
It would be a shame, in the meantime, for people with nearly identical goals–reforming this state’s government to rid it of the institutionalized corruption therein–should be attacking another candidate who is on their side.
I appreciate the attempt to dig for facts here and I like how GarnetSpy has clearly presented in his text the facts as the facts and his opinion as his opinion. As long as TRUTH is the object, the media, the bloggers, major networks, and papers are doing their jobs as they should be. Questions have to be asked and investigations made. If we’re going to pursue true reform, everyone has a role and everyone needs to see what is going on.
If nothing else, unless we’re in a huge echo chamber here, it’s interesting to see what a huge difference, for good or bad, just a few concerned people can make. It should encourage other people to get more actively involved.
My understanding is still that the tea party activists and those that attended one or more tea parties are not a cohesively organized group of folks that have regular meetings to issue endorsements and stuff like that. There are really no official membership roles, it doesn’t issue position papers, etc. Some of the tea party organizers in various counties may have gotten together to say they support Larry Grooms, but I think even the Charleston Post and Courier today makes it sound like a bigger deal then that really is.
I attended several tea parties in Greenville, Spartanburg, and Boiling Springs. From what I saw and who I talked to, I got the sense that there are a lot of folks participating in these tea parties that are also supporting Nikki Haley. Maybe the Lowcountry tea party folks have more of a reason to know who Larry Grooms is–and he certainly has latched on to the tea parties down there–but I’d still say Haley is the preferred candidate of most of the tea partiers that I have met.
Matt:
That has been my experience, too.
Both Haley and Grooms suffer from low name recognition but Haley has been getting some positive national as well as state-wide exposure so I sense some significant momentum there. She’s talking definite workable solutions rather than generalities and has the intelligence and know-how to get things done–as she has a record of doing.
She will use the bully pulpit of governor very well just as she has done in the past with her encouraging regular, everyday citizens to get concerned and work to accomplish specific tasks vital to reforming the state government.
That has been my experience with her. I’ve seen her apply good common sense in her judgement and her reactions to the corruption in the statehouse are the same as mine and just about everyone else I’ve talked to. There is outrage out here and folks are waking up to see just how far their government has gone.
Her actions and philosophy indicate that she is there with us on principles and willingness to change things to make a much more transparent state government so that we can FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL and put the statehouse crooks on record every time they do something.
None of the “big three” good ol’ boys are anywhere near this in philosophy nor political courage. We need someone with guts who has taken a stand for the regular folks in this state. I really think we’d be represented by Nikki Haley.
On the other hand, if we allow bauerbarrettmcmastah to get elected, we’ll just be a means to whatever big government ends they’re after.