But what kind of economy will it be growing?

This week, speaking in his hometown of Charleston, Hitt rattled off an impressive list of new manufacturing jobs that have been announced in South Carolina over the past year.

The most recent was a textile company that is building a new $150,000 plant in Barnwell County. It will employ 120 people. But that pales in comparison to announcements earlier this year by two tire companies -- Continental and Bridgestone -- collectively to invest $1.7 billion and create 2,550 new jobs. These investments, plus expansions by Michelin in the state, could eventually lead to South Carolina becoming the nation’s largest tiremaker, Hitt said.

“Manufacturing is going to save this region,” said Hitt, a former BMW executive. He added that South Carolina could be at the forefront with its limited union presence and the loyalty state workers have shown to their employers.

Hitt called the manufacturing sector the “brightest spot in the state’s economy,” having just enjoyed its first back-to-back months of sector employment growth in 13 years. Additionally, he said manufacturing exports have increase 137 percent over the past 10 years. Add to the mix that the state has announced more than 17,000 new jobs since the beginning of the year.

Hitt also extolled the state’s need to focus on higher education, so that it could, in his words, “pull itself up by the hair.”

After the glad-handing subsided following the Rotary luncheon at which he was speaking, Hitt vigorously defended his agency’s focus.

The secretary was asked whether the state’s focus on manufacturing would cause it to follow the same dead-end path that textiles brought the state to years ago when thousands of jobs moved to foreign countries.

“These are good-paying jobs, $40,000 a year, in South Carolina,” said Hitt, who said his agency couldn’t do as much to help other sectors, like construction, until the nations’ banking woes are solved.

A two-tiered future?

Not only did Hitt’s Rotary speech avoid hot button topics of the past gubernatorial campaign of supporting small business and developing a knowledge-based, green economy, but also recent literature in the field of economics has brought up the concern that pursuing such a two-front campaign – higher education and plant floor jobs – could hasten what has been termed “employment polarization.”

You might find a couple of meetings scheduled for next week to be interesting:

• Fiscal fitness. A Judiciary subcommittee will host a public hearing on fiscal fitness Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in the Aiken Tech amphitheater, 2276 Jefferson Davis Highway, and will meet again Wednesday at 1 p.m. in 209 Gressette. More.

• DHEC. A personnel committee conference call will be held 1 p.m. Monday,. in conference room 3380 of the agency’s headquarters at 2600 Bull St. in Columbia, to discuss the hiring of an agency director.

The state Centers for Economic Excellence will host the SmartState conference starting Sunday in Charleston with speakers from around the world giving insight into growing a knowledge-based economy. The conference will conclude Tuesday and be held at the Charleston Place hotel. It could presage more efforts toward a more diversified state economy. More.

The fight is getting hotter in Columbia over the Department of Health and Environmental Control board’s decision to issue a water permit to Georgia that could lead to deepening of the shared Savannah River and an expanded port their before a similar project in Charleston.

This week, Gov. Nikki Haley’s chief of staff, Tim Pearson, declined a request for members of her staff to speak to a Senate panel looking into the permitting done by a cabinet agency. (Interestingly, Haley had a press conference on the issue on Monday -- the day before the Senate panel met.)

Pearson, in a letter, offered to have staffers come and speak privately to individual members of the panel on the permitting. In response, the panel is considering subpoenaing staffers.

One elected official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that he and others are especially interested in a supposed meeting that may serve as the linchpin to any gubernatorial meddling. Critics have contended that Haley pushed for the permitting in exchange for fundraising and political reasons.

But on the flip side, what should the state have done? Not permitted the request, potentially opening the door for fewer environmental concessions from Georgia on oxygen levels in the river? Enrage a neighbor state trying to right its own economic ship and set it on a more direct course? If Haley had stood against the permitting, how easy would it have been in the future to get similar efforts going in Charleston with a legislative caucus from Georgia breathing fire in Washington, D.C.? We’ll never know.

Winthrop Poll soon

The next Winthrop Poll will be released Tuesday and will contain the latest results from questions about the looming presidential campaigns, President Obama’s job rating, and other issues.

DEC. 2, 2011 -- President Andrew Jackson had the first “kitchen cabinet” of informal advisers for a good reason -- the regular “parlor cabinet” of executive branch Cabinet secretaries got embroiled in a scandal that tore them apart. 

Eighteen decades ago, Secretary of War John Eaton took a young widow as his wife. But many “respectable” folks, including the wife of Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, thought the timing of the marriage was too soon after the woman’s first husband died. As the regular Cabinet bickered, Jackson met informally with trusted outside advisers -- sometimes apparently in the White House kitchen, which is where the term came from. Eventually, Jackson cleaned the deck of the regular Cabinet.

Since the days when issues over what “looked right” caused a scandal,  it’s been common practice for major politicians to have a kitchen cabinet of people they trust to advise on public policy -- to bounce ideas off of, to argue, to debate and more. 

According to KillerCampaigning.com, “The best political campaign advice that a candidate receives, though, is often from a small, select group of advisers who serve as a sounding board for ideas and strategies that you’re thinking of implementing on the campaign trail.  This private political campaign team ... usually consists of friends and colleagues whose opinions you admire and trust.”

GOP Gov. Carroll Campbell had about a dozen people who served as an informal kitchen cabinet. About half were seasoned political veterans on his staff. The rest were business people or friends outside official state government channels. It was the same for Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges, who brought a couple of former legislators on staff and had other experienced professionals and friends as a frequent sounding board.

With all of this as a backdrop, it’s pretty clear that current GOP Gov. Nikki Haley might just need a real kitchen cabinet. As best as we --and several GOP and Democratic observers we’ve talked with -- can tell, she may have the smallest, most insular kitchen cabinet of all time -- just her husband and 29-year-old chief of staff. A couple of other folks periodically may be brought in, but we’re told the key decisions are made mostly by Haley and Tim Pearson, her top aide. 

So maybe that’s why the governor, who started off with a bang at the beginning of the year, is having such a hard time in the media, particularly of late. She seems to have been making a lot of decisions that hurt her politically. 

For example, many still reel over how Haley got rid of philanthropist Darla Moore from the USC board earlier this year. She didn’t, they say, need to create headlines by axing the woman who had given millions to the school.

Others point to a business trip to France and Germany, which featured a pricey reception in Paris. While veterans of economic development say the reception made sense and was the way to play the game to land big jobs, the way that Haley talked about it -- and kept talking about it -- turned it into more of a liability than help.

Other decisions caused fallout that might have been avoided if there were a kitchen cabinet to challenge the governor. For example, Haley, who campaigned on accountability and transparency, has been slammed for agreeing to delete staff emails. Seasoned veterans immediately would have seen the inherent problems with such an idea and might have helped the governor make a different decision.

Haley’s been hammered for asking the Mansion chef to bake birthday cakes for staffers and allowing him to use its state kitchen for private catering. And she’s still being excoriated for a decision by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control’s board to allow a dredging permit that will help the state of Georgia’s port.

In some of the choices, Haley may eventually be proved right, but they’ve been implemented immaturely, which has caused the problems. So all of this adds up to one thing: The governor needs to get more political advice and expand the tent to get more input on policy alternatives. Continuing to circle the wagons won’t make her more effective --  just when that’s what we need.

Boeing. A tentative deal has been struck that could end the labor fight between the aircraft manufacturer, who has opened an enormous plant in the Charleston area, labor unions and the National Labor Relations Board. More.