Governor Sanford

[monsoon]

OK when I am wrong I will admit it. I said that Sanford was acting like a contender for the 2012 GOP nomination given his recent actions on the Obama stimulus. However it was his actions not in the news that has doomed him on this point. The news is reporting that Sanford was having an extra-marital affair and had since admitted to it. This explains his absence over the last few days and the subsequent fishy stories that came next.

Wonder who is going to take his place? My guess is he will resign his seat. Not sure how the SC constitution deals with this sort of thing.

[kayman]

OK when I am wrong I will admit it. I said that Sanford was acting like a contender for the 2012 GOP nomination given his recent actions on the Obama stimulus. However it was his actions not in the news that has doomed him on this point. The news is reporting that Sanford was having an extra-marital affair and had since admitted to it. This explains his absence over the last few days and the subsequent fishy stories that came next.

Wonder who is going to take his place? My guess is he will resign his seat. Not sure how the SC constitution deals with this sort of thing.

[CorgiMatt]

Jakie Knotts, Sanford's nemesis, has come out supporting Sanford for being honest. GOP leaders will stop at nothing to keep themselves in power in SC. They'll go right back in there because South Carolinians are, well, South Carolinians.

[Spartan]

I think that for the good of South Carolina, he should not resign. God help SC if Andre Baur gets promoted.

[monsoon]

I'm thinking he isn't going to survive the constant media attention this is going to bring to him and his family. The State paper has released explicit emails between Sanford and his Argentinian mistress. All of the cable channels are going wild with it. My guess is he will have to resign just for his own sanity.

It also sounds as if The State had these emails for a while. That in itself is news. Apparently they caught him by staking out the flight coming in from Argentina and his vehicle at the Columbia airport based on these emails. Sanford was hoping to sneak back into Columbia and giving the hiking story as the reason for being gone. Looks as if The State caught him and the jig was up.

[krazeeboi]

WOW, WOW, WOW, Mark Sanford done did it for the GOP in SC for sure. If it wasn't the foolishness by Russ DePass last week calling Michelle Obama and her relatives gorillas that did it this has done it for sure. It seems like this will be a major coup for the Democrats and Indepedents to grasp for power in this state. It might make SC a more politically competitive state when it comes to gubernatorial and state politics.

[CorgiMatt]

I think that for the good of South Carolina, he should not resign. God help SC if Andre Baur gets promoted.

[Captain Worley]

Yeah, at his conference he sounded sincere, but two things struck me:

1) He didn't have to go to Argentina for a few days to break up. Phone or e-mail would have worked.

2) I'm not buying the 'cried for five days' in Argentina comment. That blew him out of the water.

As for resigning, he was elected on a basis of faith and trust, and he's shown he isn't worthy enough of it. He should do the honorable thing and step down. I suspect he'll do the legal thing and serve out his term

God help SC if Andre Baur gets promoted.

[ohioaninSC]

Please. You can put a golden retriever on the ticket in SC; as long as there's an "R" behind the name, it will get elected.

Furthermore, the governor amounts to nothing more than a figurehead in state politics anyway. You want to see REAL change in the state? Start with replacing Glenn McConnell.

[Captain Worley]

That's an insult to my golden retriever...

[GvilleSC]

He should resign....

[krazeeboi]

My apologies to golden retrievers everywhere. Maybe I should have said "earthworm" instead.

Here's why Sanford will not resign, nor will there be a push for him to resign: Bauer would become governor, and Glenn McConnell would become lt. governor. McConnell is really the one running things as senate president pro tem, and he's not about to take a demotion to lt. governor--although such a transition would probably be the best thing SC could do.

[monsoon]

^My guess is that at this point, if Sanford decides it's time to leave office, then I would be willing to bet he won't care much about who takes his place. If he cared about this political party, and the state of the governorship, he would not have participated in this affair. I don't even care about the affair as much as the manner in which he went about trying to cover his tracks. The point is that he really doesn't care, as much as he has said otherwise, given the unacceptable actions, for a sitting governor, that he has taken.

When he decides it's time to go, then he will go, and it won't matter to him if Osama Bin Laden would be the next in line to take that seat.

[krazeeboi]

When he decides it's time to go, then he will go, and it won't matter to him if Osama Bin Laden would be the next in line to take that seat.

[CorgiMatt]

Speaking of Glenn McConnell, it just hit national headlines that he is calling for Sanford to resign.

[krazeeboi]

If that's the case, I'm willing to bet that in the order of succession, McConnell will still keep his position. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the day when someone even minutely progressive takes over his position, but I just don't see McConnell vacating it without some finagling going on behind the scenes.

[GvilleSC]

I'm trying to decide if Andre Bauer would benefit or suffer from acting as governor, prior to running next year. Most people aren't too happy with him now anyway, but would the state's top position change him in people's eyes or doom him? Hopefully there will be a better candidate on the GOP primary and it won't matter either way...

[monsoon]

I'm trying to decide if Andre Bauer would benefit or suffer from acting as governor,...

[vicupstate]

If Sanford resigns, Bauer would become Governor, but I would ASSUME teh Lt. Governorship would remain vacant. I don't see McConnell would lose his power under this scenario.

[CorgiMatt]

Tonight on NBC Nightly News, Michael Jackson's death was the first story, Farrah Fawcett's was the second, and Mark Sanford was third. It has come out that he hooked up with his mistress during a taxpayer-funded trip to Argentina last year and that he has said he will pay the state back for that portion of the trip.

Business trip indeed. I remember thinking how unlikely a place Argentina was for an official state business trip. I was glad for it because I always hope for more international business in SC, but Argentina? I suppose if the woman lived in Ethiopia he would have gone there for an official state business trip. Nothing against either Argentina or Ethiopia, but come on.

[monsoon]

Concerning the earlier discussion of Glenn McConnell and the fact he would the office of Lt. Governor if Sanford resigns. In doing a read of the SC Constitution, the first time I have really looked at it, McConnell would have to do this because he is President Pro Tempore. Now, President Pro Tempore is an elected position as determined by the General Assembly and one assumes the person elected to this position first agreed to run for it. So it seems to me that Mcconnell has no choice to take the seat if Sanford resigns. If that happens, he has to vacate his senate seat, as described in the Constitution and it is filled by an election. Interestingly however, the Constitution does not say that McConnell couldn't resign the position, but I assume this would involve a lot of political risk on his part so he might not want to do this.

However, IMO, this situation goes well beyond anything that McConnell might have an ability to control. The problem is that Sanford is a Republican of national stature. He isn't an obscure governor that nobody has heard of. Instead he is a household name in most of the country and has been often been put up as one of the future leaders of a revived GOP. The revelations of his affair and attempts to be sneaky about it, is a huge black eye to the national GOP. They are going to want him gone quickly just as the democrats buried any evidence that John Edwards ever existed. My guess is the national GOP is going to tell the state party, including McConnell that if you know what is good for you, don't do anything to keep Sanford in office.

[Spartan]

Does anyone not find it odd that all of this is happening to the GOP almost exactly like it did to the Democrats a few years back? It's eerily similar.

[monsoon]

Does anyone not find it odd that all of this is happening to the GOP almost exactly like it did to the Democrats a few years back? It's eerily similar.

[monsoon]

BTW This is SC Law. You can view it at this link: OFFENSES AGAINST MORALITY AND DECENCY

SECTION 16-15-60. Adultery or fornication.

Any man or woman who shall be guilty of the crime of adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment and, on conviction, shall be severally punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than one year or by both fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.

SECTION 16-15-70. "Adultery" defined.

"Adultery" is the living together and carnal intercourse with each other or habitual carnal intercourse with each other without living together of a man and woman when either is lawfully married to some other person.

SECTION 16-15-80. "Fornication" defined.

"Fornication" is the living together and carnal intercourse with each other or habitual carnal intercourse with each other without living together of a man and woman, both being unmarried.

--------------------

So Sanford has clearly broken state law. Does anyone expect that Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, the same Sheriff in Columbia who made the big deal about arresting Michael Phelps because someone took a photo of him smoking a bong, is going to show up at the Governor's mansion to arrest Sanford? The hypocracy is so deep, it's a wonder the people there are not drowning.

[Spartan]

Ok, perhaps I should have specified that I meant what I said in a broader sense, not just in reference to the Mark Sanford issue. A few years back, the Democrats had no leader, they had no control over any branch of government, they were being hit with miscellaneous scandals like this, and they were having debates over whether they should move to the right and be more centrist or whether they could win when they went back to "democratic principles." Republicans are going through the same thing right now.

I personally don't care about Sanford's shenanigans. Both parties are full of crap. I'm tired of finger pointing and polarized politics, and it irritates me that the Lib's are having a field day with this thing because it only further polarizes the two parties and the whole "gotcha" political environment we're living in these days. It's exactly like the Democrat's efforts to impeach President Bush a few years ago. It was clearly out of spite because Clinton was impeached.

So, what does all this crap about Sanford prove? Sanford's acts are no more representative of the Republican Party than Clinton's were of the Democrats.