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Lots of people are buzzing about Nikki Haley today — and for good reason. She won nearly 50% in a four-way race — a very strong showing. Because she fell just shy of 50%, she’ll have to have a run-off with second place Rep. Gresham Barrett. She is nearly guaranteed to win this run-off in two weeks and get elected Governor this November in heavily Republican South Carolina. If … er when she does, she’ll become the second Indian-American Governor — both Republican, both from the Deep South. An amazing achievement. One pundit already thinks the Republican Party will use her to give the response to next year’s State of the Union.

Nikki Haley had to endure a sleazy charge of adultery from two men, one a blogger the other a former campaign manager of Lt. Gov Andre Bauer. Bauer was competing against Haley for the Governor’s mansion.

While nothing is proven, most people in South Carolina believe it is Andre Bauer behind these accusations of adultery against Haley. Most people think these accusations don’t pass the smell test. They looked like a desperate attempt to unseat the front runner in the race.

Voters in South Carolina roundly rejected this and believed Nikki Haley to be telling the truth. And Andre Bauer? Well, he ended up in DEAD LAST at just 12%, an pathetic total for a sitting Lieutenant Governor.

Sweet, sweet justice for the man who compared the poor to stray dogs who breed if you give them food. Man, am I proud of the Republicans voters in the Palmetto State for kicking this guy’s career to the curb.

What is with South Carolina Republicans? First Gov. Mark Sanford’s bizarre adultery tale. Now the Lt. Governor is making headlines.

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is not apologizing but insisting he merely should have used better words to explain himself.

He’s in hot water for his obnoxious comments comparing those who perpetually stay on government assistance to “stray animals.”

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals,” Bauer told a Greenville-area crowd. “You know why? Because they breed.

“You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”

Unbelievable. So much to say about this grotesque and stupid comment. First of all, it’s a violation of a person’s dignity to compare them to a stray animal. No half-hearted ‘poor word choice’ apologies will do. It’s offensive and he ought to apologize.

I think that Republicans who attack the poor for collecting too much welfare  should also attack corporate welfare — or else their comments fall on deaf ears. As conservative journalist Tim Carney noted: “Thinking of GE, Goldman, Pfizer & Boeing it’s ridiculous to me that conservatives used to assail actual poor people as ‘welfare queens.’”

I do believe that some people (not all) become too dependent on government assistance and that this dependency hinders their ability to better their lives. But all Andre Bauer did was undermine this argument in South Carolina with his obnoxious comments. Those who call for more government assistance will surely cite what Andre Bauer said. Unless he truly apologizes, Republicans in South Carolina should distance themselves from Bauer.

Catholics in Maine were way outspent in their effort to return the marriage law there to a union of one man and one woman. But Bishop Malone of Portland was supported in this battle by many brother bishops, including Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis who sent $10,000 to help.

Gay activists took to the streets outside the Cathedral in St. Louis to protest Archbishop Carlson’s decision.

Catholic News Agency reports:

According to The Vital Voice, Show Me No Hate has accused the Archdiocese of St. Louis of misusing the funds, saying the Church has neglected the poor, sick and homeless in the city by donating the money to a campaign against gay “marriage.” The organization plans to rally outside the cathedral every Sunday for the duration of the season of Advent.

Archbishop Carlson would not let these allegations go unanswered.

On funds being ‘misused’: “This fund has traditionally been the Archbishop’s for discretionary spending, not for formal operations, and is funded by private gifts.”

On ‘neglecting’ the poor and sick: “We are currently the largest private funder of Doorways (www.doorwaysmo.org) an organization the late Archbishop John May help found in the 1980’s. Doorways provides affordable, secure housing and related supportive services to people living with HIV/AIDS… ”

He continued: “In fact, no other private institution in the world does as much for the sick and the poor as the Catholic Church. In the state of Missouri, Catholic Charities is the largest private provider for social services. In the Archdiocese of St. Louis, we spend millions of dollars helping the homeless through Catholic Charities.”

The Archbishop also answered the criticism that the Church somehow shouldn’t speak out on political and cultural issues like marriage.

“We do have the obligation as Catholics to carry out Christ’s teachings, whether in the privacy of our own home or in the public square. Separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor a particular faith. It does not mean that faith-filled people lose their right to speak out publicly and engage in the political process.  In fact, the Catholic Church was in the forefront of the civil rights movement, and that was a political issue as well.”

And there Archbishop Carlson is invoking a great man, Archbishop Joseph Ritter. It was Archbishop Ritter who courageously desegregated the Catholic schools in 1946, a full eight years before the Supreme Court’s decision on public schools in Brown v. Board of Education.