Early this morning, Will Folks continued his week-long period of self-aggrandizement by posting text messages from the past while. While we feel like screaming to the sky, “HEY — THIS STORY IS FUCKING TRUE,” that’ll be borne out soon enough. But the news here is Folks is who we thought he is. If he was or wasn’t getting paid by the gubernatorial campaign of Rep. Nikki Haley, and there’s a myriad of ways to “clean” the money, he was certainly working hand-in-glove with it.

The number of texts between Folks and Haley campaign manager Tim Pearson are simply staggering. And Folks’ paranoia is, well, damn heartwarming. Then there’s the interesting roundabout involving the local news industry. Folks is scared shitless about by AP reporter Jim Davenport, but he was actually behind on the story, as the Free Times‘ Corey Hutchins was doing his due diligence on it. And The State was way, way behind, as per usual. We got a laugh out of this Pearson text: “I talked to oconnor. Feel a little better abt things. Will call later.” It’s good to know The State can be reassuring campaign staffers when it’s getting its pants beat off on a story.

You might have also noticed them talking about “last year.” Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was regarding us. Yeah, don’t know how the word spread, but apparently a little less than a year ago, Folks got himself all worked up in a lather thinking that we were going to break the story that’s consuming so many people these days. But we weren’t. Never were. Never even considered it. Whole thing kind of caught us off-guard at the time.

The last bit, which should be disconcerting to U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, is that it looks like a higher-up in his campaign has been regularly leaking information to Folks. We know who it is, obviously Folks knows who it is, and the leaker knows he should probably keep a lid on it from here on out. Not telling Barrett what to do, but if we had an employee leaking information to a guy who had a direct line to a competing campaign, heads would roll.

After a couple weeks of building staff, hiring consultants and being given office space, Rep. Nikki Haley will announce for governor this week, sources tell WR. Some are saying the announcement could come as early as Thursday.

In the past several days, she has hired Maryland-based consultant Jon Lerner, who does a significant amount of work for the national Club for Growth and ran Gov. Mark Sanford‘s 2006 campaign. She also hired Tim Pearson, former rapid response man for Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign, to do her communications work, along with bringing in other lower-level staffers.

With U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett and Sen. Larry Grooms already in the race, and Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster and Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer expected to jump in, Haley will be the fifth candidate in the Republican primary, having to battle the big three for money and grassroots support. She will also have to compete with Grooms for the Sanford-friendly types, both in dollars and on the ground. However, her tie-in with Lerner could signal that Sanford allies are already organized behind her bid.

UPDATE: Word into the WR newsroom is that Justin Evans, formerly a research associate with the S.C. Policy Council, has already left the SCPC to work for the Haley campaign.

Sources close to WR are saying that Rep. Nikki Haley‘s gubernatorial bid is continuing down the tracks, with the hiring of Tim Pearson, who will be heading up communications for the campaign.

Recently, Pearson was the rapid response director for former N.Y. Mayor Rudy Giuliani‘s presidential campaign. More recently, he was the deputy communications director at Freedom’s Watch, a now-defunct organization run by former staffers for former President George W. Bush.

As Haley’s campaign moves on creating a full staff, it is only a matter of time until a candidacy announcement, so the effort can make sure the Big 3 don’t lock up all the big-money donors.