Talk Elections

Where is South Carolina's governor?

The lieutenant governor doesn't know, and neither does a state senator who's a close confidante. Even Gov. Mark Sanford's wife is in the dark.

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer said he's been told the governor's staff is in contact with the second-term Republican, but Sanford's wife said she hasn't heard from him in several days, including Father's Day.

"He was writing something and wanted some space to get away from the kids," Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press while vacationing with the couple's four sons at their Sullivans Island beach house. She said she didn't know where he was, but wasn't concerned.

Sanford, who's also chairman of the Republican Governors Association, earned a reputation as the nation's most vocal anti-bailout governor by refusing $700 million in federal stimulus money for schools until he lost a court battle earlier this month.

His spokesman Joel Sawyer released a statement saying the governor was taking a break after losing the fight.

"Gov. Sanford is taking some time away from the office this week to recharge after the stimulus battle and the legislative session and to work on a couple of projects that have fallen by the wayside," Sawyer said.

Sawyer wouldn't say where the Sanford was, but said in another release the governor let his staff know where he was going before he left last week and said he would check in.

As a member of Congress in the 1990s, he slept in his office to save money. Political insiders recount tales of his walking around barefoot in meetings in the state Capitol and even doing sit-ups at odd times. During his State of the State speech in 2006, he lost his train of thought and admitted he was daydreaming about a fishing trip with a pal.

Katon Dawson, the former state GOP chairman, recalled when Sanford disappeared from the Republican National Convention last year in St. Paul, Minn.

“He called me and said he was in back in South Carolina,” Dawson said. “He didn’t tell anybody.”

Associated Press
June 24, 2009
Report: SC gov was in Argentina, not hiking trail

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is telling a newspaper that he was in Argentina during his unexplained 5-day absence, not hiking along the Appalachian Trail as his office previously said.

The Republican told The State newspaper in South Carolina that he arrived at the Atlanta airport Wednesday.

Sanford says he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country. The governor says he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail but wanted to do something "exotic."

Sanford says he returned after a five-day absence because the trip turned into more of a fuss than he ever expected.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was expected back at work Wednesday after a five-day absence for what aides said was a hiking trip that turned into more of a fuss than he ever expected.

They said Sanford cut short his vacation on the Appalachian Trail when news broke he'd been out of touch for four days, raising questions of just who was running the state.

The governor's spokesman, Joel Sawyer, said Sanford wanted to get away to clear his head after the legislative session, during which he lost a key battle.

But no one could accuse him of taking his work with him: Sanford left Thursday and his staff didn't hear from until Tuesday morning.

First lady Jenny Sanford told reporters she had no idea where the father of her four children went during Father's Day weekend. And one state legislator was ready to rewrite state law to make sure governors pass their power on when they go incommunicado.

The Democratic National Committee rushed out an Internet video, "Where's Sanford?" It featured news clips questioning the judgment of a Republican governor whose national notoriety has been boosted by his unsuccessful fight to refuse federal stimulus dollars for anything other than paying down debt.

Sawyer said Sanford was stunned by the attention.

Critics of the two-term Republican — and there are many — wondered why it took nine hours after reporters started asking questions for the governor's staff to say what the state's chief executive was doing.

Sanford's aides stopped answering questions about his trip, including where he was on the 2,175-mile trail, whether he was with security and if anyone else could confirm his whereabouts.

Republican state Sen. Jake Knotts started asking questions Monday about a rumor that Sanford had disappeared in a state law enforcement vehicle.

His wife, Jenny, told The Associated Press on Monday that he needed time away from his four sons to write. For hours, his staff would only say he was vacationing.

Jenny Sanford said at the family's beach house Tuesday: "Leave us to our privacy."

Sanford, a trim, 49-year-old former real estate investor and Air Force reservist, is typically drained at the end of a legislative session, former aides said. State Sen. Tom Davis, a Beaufort Republican and Sanford's former chief of staff, said he visited with Sanford last Wednesday and could tell the governor was ready for a break.

"It's not unusual to take off and kind of be by himself," Davis said. "It's part of what makes him him."

The governor has long been known as a loner — bucking GOP leadership during three U.S. House terms and casting the only dissenting vote on Medicaid coverage for some breast and cervical cancer treatment. He clashes often with the Republicans who control both chambers of his state Legislature, once famously carrying two piglets to the door of the House in opposition to what he said was pork-barrel spending.

But past vacations never left Sanford completely out of touch, said Chris Drummond, Sanford's former spokesman. At worst, Sanford would call in daily or would respond to voice mails.

Who was in charge became the political and practical question.

Essentially, Sanford's staffers said they'd decide who to call if an emergency popped up and the governor couldn't be reached. The state's constitution says a temporary absence would give the lieutenant governor full authority in the state. But the temporary absence has never been defined.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, a Charleston Republican, said the state's law needs to be clarified. He said state residents want important decisions to be made by elected leaders.

"In an emergency," he said, "it should be those people who consult with staff to make a decision and not the other way around."

Now that Sanford says that he will stay put, what will be the reaction of their SC counterparts?
Let's not forget, we aren't talking here about Rockefeller Republicans/Northeastern RINOs here.
We are talking about the heart of the Bible Belt and the Family Values crowd.

Now he's mournful, now he invokes Jesus' name. Bull. He is no Christian, he knew he was violating his vows, his role as a father, and his oath of office.

So I laugh. I laugh in the faces of those who wanted Clinton's head, but now shed a tear for this man's marriage. Clinton never went around preening about his family values. He might have been a cheat, but he was no hippocrite. This clown is both.

Also, I misspelled hypocrite a moment ago. I apologize to my wife, my cats, and the state of Wisconsin for my hasty typing and my mishandling of the English language, to which I owe so much.

"It is my personal view that the largest proclamation of one's faith ought to be in how one lives his life." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Sanford#Political_actions

This evening, The State newspaper in Columbia released some of the e-mails between Sanford and the woman that it said it had been holding since December. The paper reported that a McClatchy correspondent in Buenos Aires today found the woman, whom it identified only by her first name, Maria, and that she declined to comment.

In an e-mail July 10, Sanford sent Maria an update about his world travels, before mentioning speculation about his being picked as  John McCain's running mate and then praising about her beauty and telling her how much he missed her.

"You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty," he wrote. "I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips . . . but hey, that would be going into sexual details," he wrote. "How in the world this lightening strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure."

He added, "I feel a little vulnerable because this is ground I have never certainly never covered before -- so if you have pearls of wisdom on how we figure all this out please let me know. . . . In the meantime please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul."

I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details ...