Open Letter to Nikki Haley and Vincent Sheheen

Dear Mrs Haley and Mr. Sheheen:

Congratulations on winning your respective elections.

I am a moderate/independent voter in South Carolina. I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal. There are more like me than either party would like to admit as we are not a "base" to play to with well used slogans designed to elicit an emotional reaction rather than to illuminate solutions.

If there is one thing that I hear over and over from voters of every age, of every party: we are SICK of the negative mudslinging.

Here is how I look at it. You are applying to ME for a JOB. You would like the job of governor of South Carolina. Your campaign, your speeches, your advertisements (even those put together by committees outside your immediate campaign), everything is your job interview.

I would never hire a person who would disparage another applicant with innuendo, distortion of facts or outright malice. Nor would I hire a person who could not tell me specifically how he/she is the best candidate and what their ideas for the job entailed.

You have both run positive campaigns in the primaries. Mrs. Haley, I was extremely impressed with the grace you showed when members of your own party turned against you and smeared you.

I was extremely put-off when a SC GOP official gave a speech after the run-offs in which she immediately begin to sling negative, hateful, immature and non-productive slurs against Mr. Sheheen and other Democratic candidates.

I know that the conservative Republicans in this state are very vocal, but I do not believe that they are the only voice in this state. I know many people who voted for Mrs. Haley because of the mudslinging done against her and how she handled it. Moderates and independents.

So please, Mr. Sheheen, Mrs. Haley, keep it positive, keep it focused on the issues. South Carolina is in serious trouble. Our jobless rate, our poor educational results, our poverty rates are the top three most important issues facing the state. We need jobs, we need educated workers to lure high paying jobs to raise people out of poverty.

If we have education, we have jobs, if we have jobs, we have a tax base that can support the services our state needs.

We have, to borrow a phrase, long wasted our ounce of prevention, it is time for the pound of cure.

Thank you,

Janet L. Nye
A SC voter.