Monday, March 4, 2013

We knew Mark Sanford had chutzpah, but...

"We're putting the band back together." For Jake and Elwood in The Blues Brothers, it was "a mission from God." But when Mark Sanford tried to put the band back together in South Carolina, things didn't work out so well.

New York Magazine is out with a close-up profile of Sanford, the former S.C. governor who lost all credibility after "hiking along the Applachian trail" -- with his Argentinian mistress in 2009. We knew Sanford had chutzpah, but the profile reveals that in spades: Sanford asked his ex-wife, Jenny, to run his current congressional campaign. "We could put the team back together," he told her.

Jenny Sanford, one of the nation's most publicly cheated-on spouses, was having none of it. She was mentioned as a possible candidate for this congressional seat herself, setting up the prospect of a Sanford-vs.-Sanford campaign. Running her cheating ex-husband's campaign? Uh, no. According to New York Magazine, the two have barely been on speaking terms since their divorce.

Mark Sanford is running for the coastal S.C. congressional seat he represented for three terms before becoming governor (and, briefly, a presidential prospect). It came open when Gov. Nikki Haley appointed Rep. Tim Scott to replace Sen. Jim DeMint, who left the Senate to run the Heritage Foundation. Sanford is expected to win the March 19 Republican primary and face Elizabeth Colbert Busch, comedian Stephen Colbert's sister, in the general election in May.

Jenny Sanford ran her husband's earlier campaigns, and former press secretary Will Folks says "there's absolutely no way" he would have been in Congress or governor without her. Her services were free in those campaigns. When she told him she wouldn't run his campaign this time, he made one last-ditch effort: "I could pay you this time," he told her.

New York Magazine quotes one Sanford associate as saying Jenny Sanford could make or break her ex-husband's campaign. If she backed him, he'd win easily. If she came out and talked about how he mistreated her, "she'd automatically sink his campaign." So far, she's doing neither.

Mark Sanford was censured by the S.C. House for bringing "ridicule, dishonor, shame, and disgrace to himself, the state of South Carolina, and to its citizens." Now it looks like South Carolinians are ready to let him potentially do it again.

-- Taylor Batten






8 comments:

Wiley Coyote said...

Rihanna calls her relationship with Chris Brown more grown up and a "fresh start" after their rockier early years together – which ended in her now infamous 2009 beating that sent Brown to jail.

...forgiveness...all the rage now.

Skippy said...

Ah no Wiley, Hillary has the market cornered, nice try though.

Unknown said...

Go away, Mark. You just need a job. I'm sure McDonald's somewhere is hiring.

Leave SC alone.

Wiley Coyote said...

Skippy,

I used one example.

Hillary is the poster child.

Unknown said...

I would hope that SC has people intelligent enough to keep this guy out of office. He cheated on his wife, so who knows what he'd do if he was voted back in.

Unknown said...

My ex-husband asked me to manage his medical office a number of years after we divorced, and I took it as a compliment.

Unknown said...

Jane, I wish I thought so, but I know that there are voters who will put him back in faster than you can say "Appalachian Trail." I worked with a woman who voted for him the first time he ran for governor because he was attractive.

Garth Vader said...

Sanford leading latest poll.

Thank you, New York Magazine.

One more left-wing hatchet job and this race is over!