Nikki Haley Goes to Bat for Romney on Bain

West Columbia, S.C.
At a rally with Mitt Romney Wednesday evening, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley hit back at Romney's GOP rivals for attacking the frontrunner's work at Bain Capital. "I am proud of all our Republican candidates," Haley said. "But we have a real problem when we have Republicans talking like dang Democrats against the free market."

The governor, who endorsed Romney in December, went on to link the Bain attacks to efforts by the National Labor Relations Board to keep Boeing from opening up a plant in the Palmetto state. "We don't ever want people to come in and say Boeing can hire and fire," she said. "We don't ever want people to go into Michelin and say they can make profits or they can't. We want companies to be able to do what is best for companies. And during tough times you downsize and make hard decisions and during good times you expand."

"He fixed broken businesses," Haley said of Romney. "We've got a broken Washington that needs to be fixed."

Haley didn't mention them by name, but Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry were the Republicans she was criticizing. In recent days, the Newt Gingrich super PAC cut an ad calling Romney a "corporate raider" and Perry accused Romney of practicing "vulture capitalism." Haley's pushback against the Bain attacks was tame when compared to that of Rush Limbaugh, who likened Perry to Fidel Castro.