Sorry, Mark, but this behavior is too weird for you to be considered presidential material. It’s not “quirky.” It’s irresponsible, and frankly unacceptable for someone charged with running a state, much less the country. When even the wingnuts who are your natural base are tossing around phrases like “dereliction of duty,” you can pretty much kiss it goodbye. (UPDATE: Argentina?? Yup, he’s done. Just as well.)
Still looking like Palin vs. Romney, isn’t it? Is there anyone else out there with a shot?
Please share widely!
Neutered Gingrich?
John Ellis JEB Bush?
Chuck Norris?
Ted Nugent?
The way he can sound so nice while being so crazy and bigoted is just astounding. If my life’s ambitions were to be a maniacal maniac, it would be my wish to be just like him. The great news about him is Sarah Palin.
He was the scariest potential out there for me…somebody who almost made the GOP seem rational.
Now he claims Argentina, which is like Appalacia in that they both start with A and have mountains. Umm… he was out of the country for 5 days and didn’t transfer power to the Lt. Gov? That’s very non-kosher methinks.
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p>That sounds like a great idea if I’ve ever heard one.
Happy Father’s Day!
That’s so random!
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p>Well, I mean, if I was governor and had a tough lege session, I mean, why wouldn’t I go to Equatorial Guinea?
But, time will tell.
http://www.esportsonline.com/?…
Here is what I was trying to say.
http://www.thestate.com/local/…
Starts by apologizing to wife and kids.
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p>Then again to wife.
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p>Now to staff.
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p>Anyone who lives in SC.
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p>Tom Davis.
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p>I’ve let down a lot of people. I would ask their forgiveness.
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p>God’s laws are designed to protect people from themselves….
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p>Special apology to people of faith in SC.
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p>I think I know what’s coming next….
Affair with someone from Argentina.
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p>Stick a fork in him.
Can we add him, please, to the list of hypocrites that Laurel usefully posted a while back? I think it’s particularly ridiculous that Gov. Sanford is a proponent of displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms. What was that Seventh Commandment, again?
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p>TedF
.. and didn’t go for the full Marzilli
(by which I mean Sanford, Eliot Spitzer, and the like) continues to beggar the imagination. Here’s Sanford — Governor of a state, head of the Republican Governor’s Association, and a contender for the presidency in 2012. He doesn’t think it’s going to cause a bit of a stir when he disappears without a trace for several days? He thinks he can cover up the fact that he went to South America? He thinks he can just say “oh yeah, it’s a great city,” as though he had decided to zip down to Atlanta for the weekend?
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p>Unbelievable. He should resign immediately, as Spitzer did. He’s not accused of criminality (yet), but his behavior is completely unacceptable for a state’s chief executive. He obviously lacks the judgment to run a state. And, I assume, his behavior is completely at odds with every value he’s staked his entire political career on.
Clinton should have resigned after having relations in the Oval Office?
Let’s both get our cards on the table, shall we?
but who knows, you know how the media tells a story which is rarely the whole and true story. Should someone quit if they’ve had an affair? Hard to say yes to that one. If they’ve been wackily irresponsible? Yea, probably.
and lied about where he was. He abandoned his obligations, both to his family and to his state. He should be gone, today.
Just kidding … đŸ™‚
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p>In my view, any elected official — Republican or Democrat — who builds his or her career on “moral values” asks to be held to whatever standard he or she claims to promote.
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p>The Germans have a saying (I’m married to a German): “Preaches water and drinks wine.” I think that captures the behavior pretty well.
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p>Mr. Sanford joins the very long list of hypocritical GOP bible-thumpers that populate my personal Wall of Shame.
I have no problem with Sanford resigning. Or Clinton. Or Ensign. Or Spitzer.
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p>Note the ressurection of the ‘worse because YOU did it’ meme. Last time we held a crucifixion of a conservative politician, I was told it was because he was for ‘family values’. When I asked if that meant that Democrats didn’t CARE about family values, I was told, no, of course they do but it’s worse for Republicans because..um…because it IS.
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p>As far as hypocricy goes, I think the last politician to run on a full-licentiousness platform was Adam Clayton Powell. ALL of them, EVERY party, claim to be for moral law, so it would make ANY who screw up hypocrites.
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p>And David – my only quibble here is the assertion that he was some kind of ‘short list’ prospect. As I said elsewhere – Romney, Pawlenty, Huckabee, Brownback, Crist, Gingrich. Some I like, some I don’t, but they are actual contenders. Merely getting into trouble doesn’t make you a contender, except in the mind of Keith Olbermann.
who pretend to have exclusive claim to “family values” or whatever you want to call them. That has been a big Republican strategy in recent years — the rubbish that Republicans are somehow more pro-family than Democrats. Between Larry Craig, John Ensign, Mark Sanford, David Vitter, and surely I’m leaving out a few, I think we can confidently put that particular canard to rest. And good riddance — it was always a fake. Now it’s been shown to be such for all the world to see.
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p>Sanford was as good a prospect as, say, Pawlenty (who will get nowhere in Republican primaries and caucuses, even if the media think he should), Huckabee (who is last year’s news and will lose the conservative vote this time around to Brownback), and Crist (who is too far off the reservation for many Republican primary voters). He wasn’t ever going to win, but neither will any of the guys I just mentioned.
Don’t think he needs to resign, though he may. Spitzer broke the law by hiring a prostitute, but I think his thing was overblown, too, pardon the pun.
and I’ll ask it directly:
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p>Did Sanford break the law by leaving South Carolina (and in fact the country) for five days incommunicado without handing control of the state over to the Lt. Governor?
… I’d think that what he did falls below the minimum standard of competence for any manager, let alone a Governor.
Foreplay is in my mind, is not having relations.
and this, of course, is sheer speculation.
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p>He left on what, Thursday? I’d bet he didn’t have plans to go down Mon or Tues morning. I’d bet it was an “emergency” visit. Maybe his mistress is pregnant. Maybe she was pregnant last week. Maybe she gave birth, maybe she had an abortion. Maybe there was some other kind of “emergency”, real or imagined.
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p>I think he didn’t cover his tracks well because he didn’t have time to concoct an alibi. It just seems too rash, too brazen to have happened without some other pressure on him heading south with urgency.
That was going to leak quick, I’m sure. He had a tough session from what I’ve read and his wife threw him out. Must’ve been a bit harried, confused, strung out.
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p>He mentioned how this developed innocently from a friendship with someone close. I mean, if he fell in love with another woman, it’s not a reflection of judgment but rather an affirmation of the difficulty and complexity of love. This doesn’t look like a Spitzer or a Clinton thing, at least not outwardly. If it is proven to be so, then skewer him, but love is a difficult thing to deal with.
with a person who isn’t your spouse is bad luck. Physically violating your marriage vows is bad judgment.
His jaunt out of the country is, but I share the sentiment that I could care less who he makes whoopie with.
That’s not what I’m talking about re the judgment to run a state. I care about disappearing without a trace, not telling anyone where you’re going, and having it be to go to South America to hang out with your galpal for a couple of days. That’s really, really bad judgment that is directly related to doing (or not doing) the job you were elected to do. That’s why he should resign.
I agree. The affair is between Mr. Sanford and his wife. His disappearance is a public issue.
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p>His disappearance is much more than a lack of judgment; in my view, he demonstrated that he is emotionally impaired to the point where he is incapacitated. He should step down or be removed, so that his Lt. Governor (or whatever the analogous post is called) can take office. Had an emergency occurred while he was out of contact, a significant constitutional and governmental crisis would have unfolded.
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p>Of course, from a purely partisan perspective, I’m just as happy to have him stay in office for as long as his party allows. All of this can only be good for his Democratic opposition.
What’s a big yuck about Sanford isn’t that he strayed – that’s for him and his wife to sort out (or not)- but rather the hypocrisy. Don’t like politicians who use their offices to push standards of behavior they don’t follow in their own lives.
What is it? Once a month we get one of these scandals? Who cares? I don’t care if they can’t keep it in their pants as long as they can keep their hands out of my pocket.