New York, June 6 (IANS) Indian-American Nikki Haley, who is contesting governorship in South Carolina, was attacked racially by a state lawmaker who called her a ‘raghead’, media reports said Sunday.
Republican state Senator Jake Knotts also made critical statement about President Barack Obama on an internet political show called Pub Politics.
Haley, who was born a Sikh, said she was ‘attacked’ because she’s leading in the polls, nbcagusta.com reported.
A ‘raghead’ is usually used against Arabs or other ethnic groups who wear turbans.
‘We already got one raghead in the White House and don’t need another in the governor’s mansion,’ a South Carolina newspaper quoted Knotts as saying.
He also commented about Haley’s parents’ religion and her family.
Haley spent Saturday afternoon campaigning at the City Hall in Aiken, just two days before the primary.
‘This is no longer about picking someone because they look good in a picture or because they hold a baby well,’ Haley said.
Haley told the crowd she wants to make South Carolina an independent state.
‘I went from ‘Nikki-who?’ to suddenly going double digits in the polls, and all of a sudden there were all these attacks. But when you go after corruption, power and money, you’re going to get attacked,’ Haley said.
Aiken Republican Club President Tony Coffero Jr. says Tuesday’s vote will be a close one.
High-priced hooker’s mum dismayed over ex-NY Guv Spitzer’s comeback moves
New York, Sep.2 (ANI): The mother of the high-priced hooker who famously serviced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has expressed dismay over reports that he may consider running for office again less than two years after the sordid sex scandal.
“Only in America,” Ashley Dupre’s mom, Carolyn Capalbo, told The New York Post.
While Spitzer is discussing the possibility of a run next year, Dupre-who was 22 when the self-described “steamroller” of Albany paid to play with her-is struggling to get back on her feet, said Capalbo.
“I really can’t blame him, but at the same time, my daughter’s having a rough go,” she said at the beach, near her home in Wall. “I can imagine she’s not happy about it.”
“He has more credibility than a 22-year-old,” Ashley’s mom said in disbelief.
Capalbo said her daughter had turned down lucrative offers to make a buck off of the scandal, including posing for nude magazines.
Less than 18 months after he left Albany in a prostitution scandal, Spitzer has held informal discussions in recent weeks about the possibility of making a bid for state comptroller or the US Senate seat currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand, sources said.
The hooker-happy Democrat has also discussed his own halfway-decent poll numbers in recent surveys, which have shown him more popular than Gov. Paterson, whose own numbers have tanked.
“He”s weighing it,” said one source.
But Spitzer hasn”t shown any interest in campaigning for the office he briefly held, sources said.
The sources stressed that Spitzer, who also served two terms as state attorney general before his landslide election as governor in 2006, has not engaged in any active discussions with political consultants.
Reached at his father”s real-estate firm, where he has been working since he resigned as governor last spring, Spitzer declined comment.
But a source close to him insisted, “It”s not true,” and two other close associates also insisted he was not interested in running for office again and was looking at a range of other options.
Spitzer quit in disgrace in March 2008 after he was unmasked in Manhattan federal court as “Client 9″ in a prostitution bust involving a major call-girl ring. He was revealed to have paid 4,300 dollars for a romp with escort Ashley Dupre, then 22. (ANI)