Following accusations of racism against a co-chair of her grass-roots re-election campaign committee, South Carolina’s Indian-American Governor Nikki Randhawa Haley has got rid of the man with reported ties to a white nationalist group.
Haley, who herself overcame a sharp racist offensive in the run-up to her successful gubernatorial bid in 2010, could well be taking on the same Democratic challenger, State Senator Vincent Sheheen, in 2014.
Her action in getting campaign co-chair Roan Garcia-Quintana to resign on Sunday came close on the heels of an intensifying demand from Democrats and civil rights groups, who took strong exception to his reported comments about racial purity.
Garcia-Quintana, one of 164 co-chairs of Haley’s campaign committee, denied the charge of racism against himself and the organisation in question, called the Council of Conservative Citizens. He, however, admitted that the group believes in racial purity and “supports Caucasian heritage” – a position that he defended.
In an interview to the South Carolina newspaper, The State, Garcia-Quintana, who is on the council’s board of directors, asked: “Is it racist to be proud of your own heritageIJ Is it racist to want to keep your own heritage pureIJ”
Democrat Sheheen’s campaign sought to quickly exploit the issue by issuing a statement on Saturday, commenting: “Nikki Haley’s appointment of a white supremacist to her re-election steering committee and refusal to renounce his beliefs is deeply disturbing. The racist beliefs and harmful rhetoric that Governor Haley is standing by have no place in our politics, are offensive to South Carolinians and once again damage the reputation of our great state. We deserve so much better from our elected leaders.”
The Haley campaign, which had initially resisted the demand for action against Garcia-Quintana changed tack over the weekend, explaining that it was previously unaware of some of his comments.
“While we appreciate the support Roan has provided, we were previously unaware of some of the statements he had made, statements which do not well represent the views of the governor. There is no place for racially divisive rhetoric in the politics or governance of South Carolina, and Governor Haley has no tolerance for it,” Haley’s political advisor Tim Pearson said in a statement.
s the controversy snowballed, it also came to light that Garcia-Quintana, as the director of an anti-immigration formation called “Americans
Have Had Enough Coalition”, strongly opposed the federal government’s new immigration proposal to provide
illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.
Even while announcing the action, the Haley campaign came down hard on Democrat Sheheen, asserting that he had no right to criticize Governor Haley and pointing out how he had condoned racial attacks on herself as she went on to become South Carolina’s first-ever minority Governor.