Sex Scandal in South Carolina

If this post's title makes you think of "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" Luv-Guv Mark Sanford, you're way behind the times. There's a new political sex scandal in S.C. and it's been keeping me entertained, and puzzled, as I've watched it unfold this week. This one's different than the usual sex scandal in a couple of ways. For one thing, the politician involved is a woman, a 38-year-old married mother of two named Nikki Haley, who's running for governor to replace Mark Sanford. For another, the story went public when the so-called "other man," a political blogger named Will Folks, announced it himself in a blog post Monday morning, saying "I had an inappropriate physical relationship with Nikki." Ms. Haley issued a statement "categorically" denying anything improper and it's been "he said, she said" ever since. It would seem that one of them is lying, but which one, and more intriguingly, why?

If there was an affair and Ms. Haley is the one who's lying, that's understandable but also dangerous, not too mention really stupid and probably doomed to fail. This stuff always comes out, and the more emphatic the statements of denial have been, the more difficult it is to walk them back. That fact alone almost makes me think she must be telling the truth - could any politician in America really think they could get away with trying to keep an affair hidden, once it starts to bubble to the surface?

On the other hand, if there really was no affair and the blogger just made it up out of thin air, you have to ask why? What's the upside for him?

There are a lot of layers to this. Mr. Folks used to be a political consultant and he actually did some work for Ms. Haley in 2007-2008, and his blog has been supportive of her candidacy for the governorship. He has released cell phone records that show hundreds of conversations between himself and Ms. Haley, some of which took place in the middle of the night and lasted for an hour or more, which sounds slightly outside the norm but doesn't prove anything. He's also released text messages, including some between himself and Ms. Haley's campaign manager that sound like they're trying to hide something but also don't really prove anything. Ms. Haley continues to deny the affair, saying it's a smear campaign and politics as usual, and all those phone calls were just business as usual between professional colleagues.

So what's the real story? Who knows. I'm going to keep watching to see how it all ends and something tells me it won't be pretty.