A prominent South Carolina political blogger, Will Folks, admits on his blog today that he had an affair with Nikki Haley, a Republican candidate for governor. Haley was enthusiastically, and very publicly, endorsed in the GOP primary by former half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin, from the steps of the S.C. state capitol building.  Folks said he decided to “let the chips fall where they may” after being repeatedly targeted by Haley’s political opponents, who had been leaking the news out a drop at a time, "while simultaneously forcing either evasive answers or denials on my part or on Nikki's part."

Folks summed up his admission this way: “Several years ago, prior to my marriage, I had an inappropriate physical relationship with Nikki. That's it." He goes on to say his wife is pretty steamed that he hadn’t told her before now, but that’s neither here nor there relative to the politics of the matter. Obviously, other GOP gubernatorial candidates, like Andre “I’m still not gay” Bauer and Henry “Yo’ Guvnah” McMaster, felt seriously threatened by Palin’s endorsement of Haley and reacted by invoking the longstanding South Carolina political tradition of jumping into the gutter to trash your opponent.