Sanford Caves?

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford may soon find himself a “man without a constituency” – and without national ambitions – after he is widely viewed to have caved to the pressure in a critical fight against the big, bad federal government and big-spending politicians in his home state.

Like a thief in the night, Sanford decided late Thursday evening to become the last governor in America to file a certification form for accepting federal bureaucratic bailout money.

This frees South Carolina from missing a key “deadline” for accepting the money … or did it?

In amazingly cavalier fashion, the White House waited until just before last night’s midnight deadline was set to expire to inform state leaders that it wasn’t as “hard” a deadline as many thought, and that it referred only to the state’s “initial request” for this particular pot of bureaucratic bailout money.

Of course, while that battle was waging, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn was warning that Sanford’s refusal to submit the initial certification meant that all $8 billion of the state’s bureaucratic bailout funds would be jeopardized.

That statement is ludicrously false, obviously, but it clearly had an impact at the eleventh hour.

Sanford’s office will no doubt argue that it has not committed to accepting a dime of the disputed $700 million (and it technically hasn’t), but it’s hard to view the governor’s actions as anything other than conceding major ground in an ideological fight that he’s been waging for weeks ever since the feds passed this $787 billion boondoggle a month and a half ago.

One supporter of Sanford said that all the governor did with his decision was “reset the clock,” giving himself an additional three months to decide which federal bureaucratic bailout funds he will seek to apply for and which funds he will seek to block.

They’ll be plenty of spin on this coming from all corners today, so keep it tuned to FITS as we follow all of it …

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