SALON

Sunday, Dec 23, 2012 7:00 AM UTC

Mark Sanford — ready for a comeback?

Post-scandal, former South Carolina governor eyes a comeback -- and could potentially face ex-wife in race VIDEO

By , Associated Press

Topics: Video, From the Wires, Mark Sanford, jenny sanford, mark sanford press conference, South Carolina, Maria Belen Chapur, ,

Mark Sanford -- ready for a comeback? Ex-South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says he is considering a campaign for his former seat in Congress.(Credit: AP)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who left public life two years ago after mysteriously disappearing to visit his then-mistress in Argentina, is poised to re-enter the political arena.

Acknowledging reports that he is seriously weighing a congressional bid for the seat he once held, Sanford wrote in an email late Saturday: “To answer your question, yes the accounts are accurate.” Sanford promised “further conversation on all this” at a later date.

The two-term governor was a rising Republican political star before he vanished from South Carolina for five days in 2009. Reporters were told he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but he later tearfully acknowledged he was visiting Maria Belen Chapur, a woman he called his soul mate at a news conference announcing his affair. The two were engaged earlier this year.

The opening for Sanford comes after Rep. Tim Scott was appointed to fill the remaining two years of Sen. Jim DeMint’s seat. DeMint announced earlier this month he was resigning.

News that Sanford, 52, may be interested in the seat comes days after his ex-wife, Jenny, appeared to be dipping her toe into the state’s political waters.

She was reportedly on Gov. Nikki Haley’s short list of candidates to fill the seat that went to Scott. Jenny Sanford later said she would think about a run for Scott’s seat representing the coastal 1st Congressional District, the seat her ex-husband is now considering.

“I’d be crazy not to look at the race a little bit,” she said Tuesday, before reports about Mark Sanford surfaced.

State Republicans said Scott plans to submit his letter of resignation from the House on Jan. 2, triggering a process of candidate filing and primaries leading up to a special election in May.

Mark Sanford knows the 1st District well. Elected to the seat in 1994 — Jenny Sanford managed his first campaign and was a close adviser for most of his career — he served three terms before voters elected him governor in 2002.

The former governor would bring name recognition and money to the race — two things especially important due to the short campaign season and wide-open field.

Whether voters are ready to welcome Sanford back to politics is another issue.

“It’s absolutely absurd. He just has so much baggage. He was such an embarrassment to the state, we don’t need that,” said Gloria Day, a retired attorney in Charleston.

He avoided impeachment but was censured by the Legislature. He also had to pay more than $70,000 in ethics fines — still the largest in state history — after AP investigations raised questions about his use of state, private and commercial aircraft.

Others said Sanford’s fiscal record is what’s important, and Sanford is known as a libertarian-leaning ideologue who railed against spending and bucked Republican Party leaders before anyone even coined the tea party movement.

“Mark Sanford is a reliable fiscal conservative so I, like many conservatives, would be delighted to see him in the race,” said Joanne Jones, vice chairman of the Charleston Tea Party, though she noted she’ll wait to see the entire field before throwing her support behind a candidate.

Scott will be sworn in Jan. 3 to replace DeMint, who announced his resignation earlier this month to lead The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Scott, who would have to seek election in 2014, will become the state’s first black U.S. senator and the first black Republican U.S. senator from the South since Reconstruction.

Candidates for Scott’s seat must file by the end of January. Primaries will be held in March, with the general election in May.

State GOP Chairman Chad Connelly said as of Friday, 14 Republicans had expressed interest.

“Gov. Sanford getting in would certainly alter the dynamics. That list would go down significantly,” he said.

Based on name recognition alone, Sanford’s chances would be good in a runoff, he said.

Sanford has $1.2 million left in his state campaign coffers.

John Dietz of Daniel Island said the affair wouldn’t affect his vote.

“He said he found his soul mate, and at one point in my life that’s exactly how I felt. I empathized,” said Dietz, a retiree who characterizes himself as a moderate.

Dietz said he was disappointed that Sanford could not work with his fellow Republicans in the Legislature.

“I did not necessarily agree with a lot of things he did politically,” he said. “I’m very much neutral at this point.”

Retired Presbyterian minister Dick Giffen of Mount Pleasant said he wouldn’t support Sanford, but added that it was unrelated to the affair.

“He wasn’t able to bring people together and get action done,” Giffen said. “He didn’t produce anything. … I really wasn’t impressed with him.”

Sanford’s contentious relationship with legislators seemed to worsen with each year of his tenure.

But longtime Republican activist and donor John Rainey, who convinced Sanford to run for governor after leaving Congress, said Sanford’s last six months in office, following his tearful press conference, were his most effective.

Rainey said he hopes Sanford re-enters politics.

“He’s finally learned how to do it. Mark now understands the necessity of and art of compromise. It’s not my way or the highway,” said Rainey, who was chairman of the Board of Economic Advisors during Sanford’s tenure.

Sanford’s engagement to Chapur may improve his standing with voters.

“Think of all that’s happened since 2009. That’s old news,” said Rainey, rattling off a list of political scandals. “Especially in the South, we’re about redemption. I don’t think he’s got a problem.”

Video of Sanford’s infamous 2009 press conference:

Continue Reading Close

More By Seanna Adcox.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10
  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 5 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

From Around the Web

Recommendations