SC Gov Mark Sanford

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I cannot say that Sanford is a strong candidate at this point.  If he’s in the race, the South Carolina primary becomes meaningless except possibly as a contest for second place and every pundit will make certain that the voters know that.  He’ll need to do well in Iowa and/or New Hampshire in order to win the nomination.  He might be able to win New Hampshire, but I just don't think he has enough of a record to run on to win Iowa.  If he can manage to get some form of private school tax credit thru the legislature he’d have an accomplishment to run on, but I just cannot see school choice as being an issue that will galvanize GOP voters, and that tax credit does not look likely of passage at this point.  Sanford is a shoo-in for re-election in ’06.  The school choice issue would have to blow up far worse than I expect for the only Democrat who would have the possibility of beating Sanford to both run and win, as I expect that Inez is probably going to wait till ’10 to make a run at the Governor’s office.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

How much power does the governor of SC have anyway?

Compared to most other governors, very little.  Besides a slew of other elected executives who are independent of him, there is the Budget and Control Board which makes the decisions on how to fine tune spending if less money is coming in or more is going out than was budgeted, and he has zero role in judicial appointments as that power is reserved to the Legislature alone.  And keep in mind that for the past two decades, a major issue has been governmental restructuring so as to place more power in the hands of the governor, so he actually has more power than either Thurmond or Hollings had when they were Governor.  The major power a SC Governor has is his bully pulpit, and Sanford gets a mized grade on his use of it.  He’s very good at connecting with the voters, but not so good at taking that connection and turning it into influence with the legislature.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

He's also pretty overrated, people are just judging him based on pure potential. Does he have a great record as governor? According to our two South Carolinan posters, both independents, it's hardly stellar.

It's pretty hard for a SC governor to have a stellar record, and Sanford's biggest lack has been in his handling of the General Assembly which is where the power is concentrated in this State.  He’s personally popular and his views are mainstream GOP.  I’ll grant that he’s light on foreign policy, but not as light as Gov. Bush  was in 2000.  Given as how there are plenty of potential VP's with foreign policy credentials, I doubt that unless Iraq is in much worse shape in 2007 than I expect that Sanford's lack of expertise in that area will be a major concern.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I favor school choice, but Sanford's F-ed up scheme is terrible.  All it will do is give a tax-break to those who already home school or send their kids to private schools.  It's too small to provide help for those who send their kids to public school because they can't afford the cost of other options, but large enough to cost the state government a lot of revenue from those who would have chosen those other options anyway.  Sanford has put too much of his political capital on this lame brain idea for him to remain a serious 2008 Preseidential possibility if it doesn't pass, but if it does pass it's not going to improve our schools one bit.  However, it's passage will improve Sanford's 2008 primary chances, as such schemes are a favorite of many GOP core voters.