SALON

Tuesday, Jun 8, 2010 4:30 PM UTC

Second alleged Nikki Haley beau takes polygraph

The South Carolina gubernatorial race is a circus, and unless Haley cracks 50 percent today, it'll go on for weeks

By

Topics: 2010 Elections, War Room, Mark Sanford, Sex,

Second alleged Nikki Haley beau takes polygraphSouth Carolina state Rep. Nikki Haley

By the end of the day, Nikki Haley could be the Republican nominee for governor of South Carolina, running to replace the sex scandal-tarred Mark Sanford. But because this is South Carolina we’re talking about, two men have come forward to say that they had extramarital affairs with Haley. The first one released phone call logs and text messages. The second has now taken a lie detector test.

Larry Marchant, a local lobbyist and former strategist for Haley opponent (and dim-bulb bigot) Andre Bauer, says he had a one-night stand with Haley at a “school choice convention” in 2008. The local Fox affiliate applied the polygraph. The results: inconclusive:

“I can tell you if I was going to bet my next paycheck as to whether or not he was telling the truth about the allegations he has made, I would bet that sooner or later he would pass that test successfully,” says the second licensed examiner, Joseph Gallimore.

Polygraph scores range from negative to positive based on whether a subject appears to be lying or telling the truth, said Davis. A score of +4 is required to “pass” a polygraph test. Marchant scored +3 on the question of whether he had sex with Nikki Haley during a trip to Salt Lake City, as he has publicly claimed.

Yesterday — again, because this is South Carolina — Lt. Gov. Bauer himself released the results of the polygraph he took, which he said proves that he wasn’t trying to push the affair story to damage Haley. (Marchant, suspiciously, “admitted” to the indiscretion the day he was fired from the Bauer campaign, less than a week before today’s election.)

Haley told the local media that all these allegations happened as soon as polls showed her with a lead over her rivals. She was with her husband, but he is not allowed to talk:

A campaign worker literally stepped in-between Michael Haley and another reporter who started asking him questions, saying Michael Haley wouldn’t do interviews even though he appeared like he was about to say something.

Haley is ahead in all recent polls, but she still might have to endure a June 22 runoff if she can’t crack 50 percent of the vote. As of yesterday, Public Policy Polling had Haley at 43 percent.

Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 17 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
200 points201 points | 7 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
143 points144 points | comment
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
44 points45 points | 8 comments
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
48 points49 points | 23 comments
vote
With the help of Photoshop, artist Yao Lu has made shanshui — traditional ink paintings — of China's landfills
22 points23 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations