Just when we here in South Carolina thought our gubernatorial race couldn’t get any more interesting, leave it up to state Senator Jake Knotts, a Lexington County Republican, to make sure that the race is a gift that keeps on giving.
Amidst the accusations from two men that they’ve had “inappropriate physical contact” with state Rep. Nikki Haley, the Palin-endorsed gubernatorial candidate, comes Knotts’ interjection:
“We already got one raghead in the White House. We don’t need another in the Governor’s Mansion,” Knotts said during a live internet interview this week on Pub Politics — a laid back program usually conducted over beers in a local Columbia bar.
Knotts issued an apology, of sorts, after word spread of his comments:
“My ‘raghead’ comments about Obama and Haley were intended in jest,” Knotts said in a statement. “Bear in mind that this is a freewheeling, anything-goes Internet radio show that is broadcast from a pub. It’s like local political version of ‘Saturday Night Live.’
“Since my intended humorous context was lost in translation, I apologize. I still believe Ms. Haley is pretending to be someone she is not, much as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur.”
But, as the Free Times reports, Knotts wasn’t quite as repentant in the moments after uttering his slur.
With a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face outside a Columbia bar, Republican S.C. Sen. Jake Knotts called Lexington Rep. Nikki Haley, an Indian-American Republican woman running for governor, a “raghead” several times while explaining how he believed she was hiding her true religion from voters.
“She’s a f#!king raghead,” Knotts said.
He later clarified his statement. He did not mean to use the F-word.
Knotts says he believed Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries. He claims she is hiding her religion and he wants the voters to know about it.
Just this past week I had remarked to a friend of mine that I found it remarkable that Haley had the lead in the four-way Republican race for governor since, one: she’s a woman, and two: she’s an ethnic woman at that. If she were a Democrat, it wouldn’t be sex scandals plaguing her, it would be ongoing jabs at her gender and ethnicity — but since she’s a far right Republican, the attacks have focused more on her sexuality.
Knotts, though, makes up for all the kid glove handling of Haley in one fell swoop, especially with his assertion that she’s being “programmed” by foreign countries to run for governor. I had no idea that taking over South Carolina was on the Sikh agenda for world domination.
Knotts, however, isn’t an innocent bystander. He has a dog in this fight. He’s endorsed the current Lt. Governor Andre Bauer to be the next governor. Never mind that Bauer himself has enough scandals in his background to last a political lifetime, including comparing poor people to stray animals and a whisper campaign about his true sexual orientation. Knott’s words, whether it was a joke or a showing of his true colors, are meant to give his candidate some traction in this race.
Haley, for her part, has never denied that she was raised in a Sikh family, but asserts that she has since converted to Christianity. Knotts, however, doesn’t believe that, telling the Free Times:
“We need a good Christian to be our governor,” he said. “She’s hiding her religion. She ought to be proud of it. I’m proud of my god.”
Sadly, Sen. Knotts, I’m not so sure he’s proud of you.
