Moral authority

Haley, an Indian-American just starting her second term, and Tim Scott, the first African-American Republican senator from a Southern state since the 1880s who she appointed in 2013, have emerged as the faces of South Carolina’s new Republican Party.

While they point to their electoral success as evidence of a changing state, they’ve still been torn between competing interests — party stalwarts who cling to the Confederate flag as an important symbol of their heritage and pro-business critics who say the flag’s shadow is holding the state back.

Those critics have argued that the new South Carolina, where Boeing decided in 2009 to locate a new assembly line for the 787 Dreamliner that created some 4,000 new jobs, could grow at a faster pace if they could find a way to remove the flag from the Statehouse.

“We were missing out on some great opportunities to showcase our state,” said Glenn McCall, an RNC committeeman who stood with Haley on Monday. “We’ve lost some NCAA tournaments, some big companies looking to relocate because of that flag.”
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There was a sense among South Carolina Republican leaders, including Graham, that they couldn’t come out too forcefully against the flag until they were certain there would be enough support across the state to follow through. A source familiar with Graham’s thinking noted that in addition to the sensitivities around the families of those killed, there were economic considerations in play.

“If the senior senator rushed out right in front of the cameras, and the flag had not come down, you just handed the competing states a huge weapon to use against you,” said the source, noting that other states would try to attract business based on the state failing to follow through on a moral call from a senior leader...