Will Folks Story Doesn’t Hold Water; Nikki Haley Undamaged by S.C. Rumor

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Republican blogger/consultant Will Folks’ unsubstantiated claim of an affair with GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley was raised in last night’s televised debate. Haley once more denied the accusation — as she has all along — and “None of her opponents attacked her over the claims.” Haley features her husband Michael in her latest ad:

Meanwhile, Alex Pappas of the Daily Caller reports this:

Will Folks claimed he was pressured to admit his extramarital affair with South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley last week because of a soon-to-be-broken news story detailing his “inappropriate physical relationship” with the Republican. But, a week later, that damning newspaper article is nowhere to be found. . . .
On his website, Folks insinuates the Columbia Free-Times newspaper was about to break a story about his affair with Haley, and indeed the newspaper itself has admitted one of its reporters did investigate such a rumor. But according to one knowledgeable source, while a Free-Times reporter did talk to Folks on May 13, no story was ever budgeted to run that week.
The reason? The Daily Caller has learned that around the time Sarah Palin endorsed Haley at a Columbia rally, an attorney for the paper advised editors not to run the story because the paper only had one source alleging the affair.

So, as I’ve said all along, Folks’ panic over the alleged story doesn’t make sense. Ed Morrissey calls this “the shoe that didn’t drop.” It all strikes me as profoundly suspicious, but I can’t prove anything.

Oh, and speaking of stories that didn’t pan out, Pappas interviewed Erick Erickson at Red State, who explained that his”we know who paid Will Folks” non-story fizzled because South Carolina sources stopped returning his phone calls.

I’ve had a similar problem the past few days. People in South Carolina who seemed ready last week to dish dirt on Will Folks have stopped talking. Maybe they decided there’s no need to take the scorched-earth approach, since Folks has done such a fine job of discrediting himself.

UPDATE: Ace of Spades:

Will Folks: I Shan’t Ever Speak Of This Unfortunate Circumstance Again, But, FYI, I’d Like a Book Deal

What a douchebag — Will Folks, that is, not Ace. And this transparent attempt to hustle a book deal (tentative title, Honey, I Shtupped the Candidate) out of his own rumor-mongering is pathetic. Ace hat-tips Jim Geraghty’s Twitter.

UPDATE II: A suspicious resignation from a rival campaign. The mystery grows ever more intriguing . . .

19 comments

  5. I posted similar thoughts on Erickson yesterday: “the Haley campaign are not going to let him run with the off the record information they gave him as background material”.

  6. I posted similar thoughts on Erickson yesterday: “the Haley campaign are not going to let him run with the off the record information they gave him as background material”.

  9. Oh grow up. Nothing personal. It is just business as usual in South Carolina. I took a shot.

    But if Nikki ever wants to have an inappropriate physical relationship, I remain open to doing so.

  10. Oh grow up. Nothing personal. It is just business as usual in South Carolina. I took a shot.

    But if Nikki ever wants to have an inappropriate physical relationship, I remain open to doing so.

  11. Than do we all get a book deal for following the story? It would be from the unique perspective of the jaded and underwhelmed.

  12. Than do we all get a book deal for following the story? It would be from the unique perspective of the jaded and underwhelmed.

  15. Sorry to go off topic, but as Mickey Kaus says, I am excitable:

    In her column today, [Maureen Dowd] doesn’t offer any substantive proposals for the president to stop the oil-gush. His language has been full of rage; he has launched a criminal investigation; he is obviously exasperated; and this is a narrative he simply cannot control. Almost from the start it was clear that only relief wells could stop this, and they take time to drill in that kind of depth.

    Maureen has long wanted Obama to be what he isn’t. We have a temperamental WASP in the White House. And the whole point of a WASP president – like GHWBush – is that they are best judged over the long term of results rather than the short term of emotion. I can quite see how emotionally, Obama is losing this p.r. war. But since he literally cannot win against a narrative determined by physics, it seems to me that columnists should be pointing out the reality of reality rather than the “reality” of “narrative.”

    Althouse is questioning me on this. But tell me, what is wrong with my argument above?

    And p.s. to Kristol and Podhoretz: I am not anti-semetic. I am just anti neocon.

  16. Sorry to go off topic, but as Mickey Kaus says, I am excitable:

    In her column today, [Maureen Dowd] doesn’t offer any substantive proposals for the president to stop the oil-gush. His language has been full of rage; he has launched a criminal investigation; he is obviously exasperated; and this is a narrative he simply cannot control. Almost from the start it was clear that only relief wells could stop this, and they take time to drill in that kind of depth.

    Maureen has long wanted Obama to be what he isn’t. We have a temperamental WASP in the White House. And the whole point of a WASP president – like GHWBush – is that they are best judged over the long term of results rather than the short term of emotion. I can quite see how emotionally, Obama is losing this p.r. war. But since he literally cannot win against a narrative determined by physics, it seems to me that columnists should be pointing out the reality of reality rather than the “reality” of “narrative.”

    Althouse is questioning me on this. But tell me, what is wrong with my argument above?

    And p.s. to Kristol and Podhoretz: I am not anti-semetic. I am just anti neocon.

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