South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford pauses to look at his notes as he admits to having an affair during a news conference Wednesday. He also said he is resigning as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
(Mary Ann Chastain/AP)Photos (1 of 1)
Sanford’s affair: a distraction the GOP doesn’t need
Sex scandal engulfing South Carolina's governor may keep Republicans from focusing on their real task: to define an alternative vision to Obama's.
By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer/ June 24, 2009 edition
Gov. Mark Sanford’s admission of an adulterous affair will, if nothing else, complicate his immediate future as top executive of the Republican-red Palmetto State.
But more critically, it will no doubt be a huge distraction from the real task before the Republican Party: to come up with a credible alternative vision to the one President Obama offers, to find a leader who can articulate it, and to shake off the shroud of hypocrisy that befalls the family-values party whenever one of its own admits to adultery.
“This just underlines again that Republican politicians should leave the preaching of moral values to preachers,” says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. “Until they move away from divisive social issues, this is going to happen to them again and again.”
While sex scandals involving Democrats Bill Clinton and John Edwards may have hurt their careers, the party itself largely withstood the fallout. The damage may run deeper for the GOP. Recent scandals involving Republicans such as former Sens. Larry Craig and David Vitter, former Rep. Mark Foley, Rep. John Ensign, and, now, Governor Sanford come at a time when the party is struggling to be relevant in Washington, perhaps by working with majority Democrats – against the druthers of its political base of social conservatives.
One thing after another for the GOP
“It’s easy to say, ‘There goes another one,’ ” says Bruce Gronbeck, a political scientist at the University of Iowa who studies political scandal. “It seems the party is split … now between the governing segment and populist state organizations, and it’s giving the party fits. Then you throw up one scandal after another, and they soon have no nails to bite at all.”
On the other hand, Dr. Gronbeck adds, Sanford’s admission helps Republicans with their process of “character evaluation” of their party’s field of possible candidates – a sort of winnowing out process ahead of next year’s congressional elections, which they hope to fine tune by the 2012 presidential election. Sanford’s libertarian-style leadership and his willingness to stand up to the Obama administration on economic issues have earned him kudos from many in the GOP establishment.
Sanford resigned immediately from his chairmanship at the Republican Governors Association, a perch from which he had been preparing for the possibility of a presidential run. The speed at which the RGA made the announcement spoke volumes about the national political impact of the governor’s admission, experts say. The Democratic Governors Association followed quickly with a press release, too, expressing sympathy for the governor.
A public admission
Sanford disappeared from sight and cellphone reach last week. His staff told reporters he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. In fact, Sanford jetted to Buenos Aires to meet a woman with whom he has been having an affair since last year, he admitted Wednesday.
Sanford publicly apologized to his wife and four sons. “I’ve been crying for five days in Argentina,” he said during an emotional press conference Wednesday, where he at times appeared to be holding back tears.
Buzz about whether the state legislature would try to impeach Sanford for “serious misconduct” under the state’s constitution immediately gave way to questions about whether he would or should resign. When asked, Sanford did not address that issue. His term ends in January 2011, and he cannot run again under term limits.
A career-killer
The fact that Sanford apparently misled his staff, who then repeated the misinformation to reporters, guarantees that the story will continue to dog not just the governor, but also the Republican Party, says Dr. Sabato.
“His White House hopes are dead, and he’ll never again be elected to statewide office in South Carolina,” Sabato says. “It’s over. His career is finished.”
Whether Sanford’s strange trip and shocking admission will ultimately help Republicans address the political liability of espousing moral behavior while major figures in the party fail to adhere to such codes in their private lives is one lingering question for the party, Gronbeck says.
“This is affecting the party in all kinds of ways right now, and you don’t know how long it will take, how far you have to drop, before you’re willing to bounce back and get that coalition-building going again,” says Gronbeck.
Comments
2. nic | 06.24.09
Excellent story that puts the latest into a broader context. Too bad you’re going to be ripped to shreds for it.
Brainwashed members of the Grand Ol’ Cognitive Dissonance Party will continue to dredge up past indiscretions of Democrats, not realizing their point is moot. If you’re going to claim moral superiority, you better live up to your own codes. If you’re going to slam liberals for being amoral, you better demand that your own representatives possess scruples. And, most importantly, you need to stop claiming that gay marriage will take away the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. Your elected leaders are 100 times more responsible for that then any gay person could ever be.
3. Jim Dandy | 06.24.09
I saw part of this guy’s press conference. I almost threw up. He is so self-centered and so dishonest in every way even to himself. He seems to have the emotional maturity of a teenager. What a sad comment on the state of politics in the US. By and large it seems that people with integrity would never consider entering politics. This guy is an example why.
4. mwf | 06.24.09
It just makes one wonder:
“does a politician seek political office partially because they are unhappy in their marriage and they can use the excuse of being too busy with ‘work’ to satisfy the needs of their spouse and children?”
5. Nolan | 06.24.09
This is why the independent base is growing. Morality is very relevant in that the building block of socieity is the family. Conservatives have expectations of representatives. If the family and the foundations of life (morality) are not respected what is the purpose of life and the future of society. If morality becomes relative, life becomes purposeless. Democracy depends on morality, meaningful life requires purpose.
6. n edward clark | 06.24.09
Other news stories have quoted the Governor’s staffers as saying that they knew Gov. Sanford’s where-abouts (although they would not say where that was. This appears to be a case of conspiracy, in which publicly-paid staff aided an elected official’s use of public resources (his time as an elected official, to begin with; I expect that public funds were also used to pay travel expenses) to further the official’s personal gains (extra-marital sex).
They should all be prosecuted for conspiring to misappropriate public resources.
8. Michael | 06.24.09
And another “family values” Republican falls from grace. The silence from the GOP is deafening. Yes, many humans do these sort of thing and it is normally a private matter. The problem is not the affair so much but the outright unfettered hypocrisy.
Time and again these “family values” proponents invariably turn out to be charlatans. Who’s next Mike Huckabee?
The real issue here is that this man abandoned his elected post and left the country! As governor he is responsible for an entire state’s well being in good times and bad. This man has demonstrated seriously poor judgment. He left the country and said nothing to his staff! He said NOTHING.
This man should resign or be forced to leave office as he is clearly not up for the job.
9. Doug | 06.24.09
Sanford followed in the infamous steps of Wilbur Mills and his Argentine firecracker from the 70’s, add on the 2009 version that he was also hiking on Naked hiking day before the truth was known and you have facts stranger than fiction.Sad for him and his family, though he is the most venal hypocrite you could invent, given his history with Bill Clinton. Republicans are going to be a fringe party in 10 years with lack of leadership like this and the country will have a chance to prosper after they are politically extinct.
10. New Yorker | 06.24.09
To all you naive close-minded Hypocrites,
I am so sick of the people and the press treating infidelity as a capital crime. So many of you are guilty of the same behavior - and then you crucify any public figure for being human.
It’s time to focus on the important priorities and reject the TMZ/Current Edition/tabloid approach.
This guy has done something important with his life and yeah, he has flaws.
I suspect those of you pass judgement the loudest are indeed the worst of human beings and citizens.
Get a real life, people.
You know who you are.
11. Chris Temple | 06.25.09
This is kind amazing to me. To have moral values is a political weakness. We should all take note of that.
Republicans hold values such as virtue, fidelity, and honor and are ridiculed for it. Democrats profess no such moral code and therefore can really do nothing wrong. So which would we rather be governed by?
Personally, I’d rather risk being a hypocrite than think it’s OK to cheat on my wife.
12. Sara | 06.25.09
@New Yorker
I agree what Sanford did is private. But he is a public figure how ran a campaign based on focusing on the family, Christianity and keeping his word.
13. Splavistic | 06.25.09
Unfortunately, I think it’s already time to move on regarding this story. It is clear as crystal that the GOP family-values platform needs a government bailout.
14. Flea | 06.25.09
In response to 10 and 11, it is not so much the affairs themselves that upset many people but the use of values as a political platform from which the politicians run. Throughout the last decade, many Republicans have tried to run on a platform of moral superiority. Ultimately, both parties are equally moral (or amoral). However, when a party claims they are morally superior, others see it as hypocritical when many major leaders within that party have moral lapses.
To claim politicians of an entire party (either side) lack morals displays regrettable ignorance and blind, unreasonable partiality.
15. Chris Temple | 06.25.09
Reply to 14,
It’s not moral superiority. It’s living a life which recognizes and attains to a set of moral values. Yes, everybody fails. But we don’t throw out the morals just because we fail. That’s called quitting. We recognize that when a person aspires to be better, to live life to a higher standard, that person lives a more content life and contributes more to the well-being of society.
You liberals are so narcissistic. We conservatives try to live our lives to a higher standard, and you think we are talking about you.
16. Tom Martin | 06.26.09
We republicans have successfully been shooting our selves in the feet with a double barreled shot gun of hypocrisy.
One barrel loaded with self righteous pias fluff about how moral every one should be and wanting to control the minutia of peoples personal lives - when it is not the governments business, and the other barrel loaded with empty rhetoric about fiscal sanity when we doubled the debt and championed the first massive bail out.
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1. Jody | 06.24.09
I cannot understand why these people have affairs in this age of modern technology. Anyone can find out about everything you do, and almost immediately. A man in the public eye should know better than to try to mislead people, as this Governor has done, in an effort to keep his affairs of the heart a “secret.” There are no secrets in the information age, and particularly not for people who are elected to public offices.