The Vacation Governor
A Fourth of July weekend in Florida …
A one-week “in country” jaunt to whereabouts unknown this week …
Another, longer trip out of the country in early August …
Is it just us, or is anybody else seeing a trend here?
After disclosing an extramarital affair with his Argentine lover last month, acknowledging a cover-up and then embarrassing the state with his “TMI problem,” S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford is now hoping that his absence makes the hearts of South Carolinians grow fonder. And while Sanford says he’s committed to spending his final eighteen months in office “repairing his relationship” with the people of South Carolina, it looks as though the “healing” (that’s SCGOP Chairwoman Karen Floyd’s word for it) won’t begin until he’s spent a fairly significant amount of time out-of-state first.
Interesting …
Oh, and let’s not forget that it was an interrupted weeklong “vacation” to Argentina that landed him in this whole mess to begin with.
Anyway, while the governor – who is ostensibly working on rebuilding his marriage – has every right to a little privacy as he seeks to get over his “soul mate” and “fall back in love” with his wife, this penchant for escapism and neglect of his official duties doesn’t bolster the argument that he should remain in office.
If anything, Sanford’s need to hit the road is precisely why we advised the governor to resign both privately and publicly in the days following his scandal breaking. We stand by that recommendation, and in fact we are even more confident that it was the correct call based on everything that’s transpired over the last few weeks.
First of all, even if Sanford was serious about taking a “Redemption Tour” across the state (and for the record, we’re pretty sure he’s not serious), that is in no uncertain terms NOT what we’re paying him over $100,000 a year to do.
We’re paying him to articulate and advance policies that will raise income levels and create jobs – inasmuch as S.C. governors can do those things, anyway.
Obviously, South Carolina’s left-leaning GOP lawmakers have managed to successfully thwart all of the governor’s job-creating agenda items (to disastrous economic results), but the governor clearly didn’t do himself any favors by rejecting an invitation to an economic development meeting last month – one that took place while he was in Argentina with his lover, Maria Belen Chapur.
Nor is it helping Sanford’s case that his “economic development” trip to Buenos Aires last summer now appears to have been deliberately arranged to facilitate a rendezvous with Chapur.
And listen up, people. Irrespective of what the governor has “paid back” to the Treasury from that trip, it remains the height of hypocrisy for a fiscal conservative to waste taxpayer time and resources on a trip that was obviously intended solely for his personal gratification.
Anyway, our point is that working on his marriage and restoring the trust of South Carolinians are two things that Mark Sanford needs to do on his own time.
This state’s problems don’t deserve to be put on hold simply because he feels compelled to write “another chapter” to his political biography.
Comments
By nosyMarie on July 15th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
In unrelated news…
Is this some sort of infringement?
bradwarthen.com
All the News that Gives You ***Fits***
By CNSYD on July 15th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
WE can only hope that the Sanfrauds bought one way tickets.
By BIN News EdiToRiaL StaFF on July 15th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
We reject the mind numbing crap sic(k) willie posts and wait for intelligant stuff that he ………………………….
Political moron.
sic(k) willie, you really are a political moron.
By He's not a business guy, never was on July 15th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Sanford was never a business mogul or real estate tycoon and has no real business experience. sorry, what you do as an intern even on Wall street doesn’t count. So how can he run the state like a business. How can he recruit jobs and companies when he really doesn’t have a personality suited for good friendship and conversation? He is not an engaging guy and certainly doesn’t have the skills to “close the sale”. Some people have it, but he don’t. Campbell did and Beasley did. sanford has greater tools given to him to work with but can’t live up to those guys. So lets face it, he is really not that good and can’t do the job as we have seen.
By 1+1=3 on July 15th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
This trip was sanctioned by the SC Republican party and paid for by its forgiving citizens – as will be each one for the next 18 months no matter if he takes his wife or his soulmate
By Earl Capps on July 15th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Nice shot of the family truckster. Heading to Wally World, I guess?
By madcock on July 15th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Sure hope Sparky doesn’t run into Christie Brinkley on THIS trip to Wally World!
ROTFLOL!!!!!
By Folly Beach Bum on July 15th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
When are Harrell, McConnel, Graham, Harrison, and the rest of the RQA bozo’s actually going to stand up to their constituents that no longer want SC to be the laughing stock of the country due to a Governor that has clearly gone of the deep end? Oh wait, Henry Mac is shaking in his boots that he will lose his shot at ever being governor if this crowd does cower down like a bunch of hypocrites and the ones that actually have the power to do something will not. These same folks have been fighting with Sanford for years clearly realizing how ineffective he is, but suddenly he is the adequate to run our state. I hope all of these guys get crippled over this on their next elections. Somebody please share the list of RQA candidates and let us connect the dots. If Bauer is supposedly so unqualified to run the state as RQA has claimed, why don’t they just let him take over and fail for 18 months and Henry won’t have any problems winning? Think about it…..
By SC Moderate on July 15th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Great article!
And I’m glad you included that we are not paying him to travel the state to repair relationships.
Somewhere I read a mention of Sanford living in an upscale apartment while in congress, rented under a corporate name… all of this when he was putting out his sleeping in the office stories. Not only would this make him a complete fraud if its true, but i’m sure many will wonder if his wife knew about the apartment. (Sort of just joking about the wife comment).
Is there any truth to this, or does this have to do with C Street, etc..?
By A. South Carolina Dead Politician on July 15th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
“Take them miles from home, so far that they can never find their way back!” So, Hansel, who knew what was going to happen comforted Gretel. “Don’t worry! If they do leave us in the forest, we’ll find the way home,” he said. And he left a trail of crumbs behind him to mark the way.”
My, my, my…why would our Governor leave such an obvious trail of crumbs for others to follow him ‘miles’ from home?
How do we make sense of this? After all, he and his wife are the most intelligent and politically sophisticated and deliberate ‘hard-ball’ couple in the State of South Carolina.
They worked together for years to reach their goals and it all has worked out splendidly; until he just had to go out and prove he was no different than the ‘red-neck’ bubba slapping ‘daisy-duke’ chasing local born and bred Carolina political boys were, he just liked his with a little spice instead of chicken bog…
So, if Jenny she found out about the Maria affair months ago, you can be sure their political enemies did too. She knew it would come out sooner or later.
And, if their political enemies found out about the Maria affair months ago, you can be sure her personal enemies did too. They knew it should come out sooner or later.
And if Maria’s personal enemies found out and the newspapers found out months ago…like the arm bone connected to the wrist bone, it was just a matter of time before everybody in South Carolina would be looking at their seventh-grade geography books to find out where this ‘town called Argentina’ was.
Let’s look at this story again shall we:
#1) Wife finds out about husbands affair. She yells at him and breaks dishes on the floor.
#2) But, the wife waits for months to throw the bums stuff out the window and the bum out of the house.
#3) The poor man, more confused than he has ever been in his entire life has no where to go but to somewhere that starts with the letter A to do some deep thinking: Appalachia? Argentina? Alaska? Atlanta?
#4) Mind made up; he doesn’t drive in a rental car or take a Greyhound bus to the Airport he takes a SC Official SLED car and parks in the parking lot! Why, no one could track his movements with this clever get away plan!
#5) He turns off his cell phone as it is pinged from a tower near Atlanta Airport. If he left his phone in Columbia, turned on, why SLED might think he was in Columbia! No one can track his movements with this plan!
#6) He get’s on plane – flys and cries for a while in Argentina and never suspects that his political enemies with SLED connections would notice he was ever gone!
#7) Opps! The crisis breaks in the South. Alert the media! Oh how easily they take the bait if it is bait.
#8) Jenny ask for privacy as she asks the media, tape recorders and cameras rolling into her house and tells the world how she threw the President…err…Governor out in the cold!
#9) Mark ask for privacy as he tells the media, tape recorders and cameras rolling into his dreams of his soul mate and tan lines.
#10) The world hails Jenny for ‘not standing by her man’ and feels ‘feelings’ for the love-struck politician who lost it all over middle age love not lust. Such a sad, sad story – almost too sad to be true.
#11) And within a few days – Jenny invites Mark back into the sanctuary of marriage and family. And all hope that they can find the way to live happily ever after.
#12) Now it’s vacation time with the other ‘better half.’
Exploding rockets, parades, bands, flag and the true American family. It’s almost like this story was written for the 4th of July! The traditional American Marriage saves the day!
If she can forgive him then we can forgive him. Don’t resign! Don’t break up! The people of South Carolina will just act as if nothing ever happened at all!
A pox on those bad political men who wanted to break this scandal of the Governor on their terms for their own political benefit!
A pox on Bauer, Knox, McMaster, Peeler, Quinn and all those Newspapers who tried to shout him from office on their terms!
But just maybe…just maybe…this story that was going to come out sooner or later came out when it did on the terms it did intentionally and has everyone looking in a lot of different directions? This is Politics.
Oh well, at least we can rest easy this month of Independence Day knowing that the First Couple of South-Political-Scandal-Carolina is back together.
They are, after all: The most intelligent and politically sophisticated and deliberate ‘hard-ball’ couple in the State of South Carolina.
As I roll over in my political grave I can’t help but think; maybe Andre Bauer or the Quinn Masterminds, et al may not be smarter than we thought, after all.
This story did break, but on whose terms?
If the story was going to come perhaps it actually came out on their terms…not Jakie Knox, Bauer’s, the State Newspaper…or the Quinn’s.
“Come! my head’s free at last!” said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders were nowhere to be seen: she looked down upon an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her.”
Watch what you may cut off South Carolina! Take your time.
It seems the Queen of Hearts is alive and well in South-Wonderland-Carolina, and she wants this execution to happen yesterday.
“Off with his head! The wonderful fat-and-thin politicians all shout!”
By Calhoun Fawls on July 16th, 2009 at 1:55 am
What else there for Sanford to do? He is Governor in name only. Call him GINO. Sanford better know he needs to kiss McConnell’s ass. It is McConnell not wanting to leave the Senate to be Lt. Governor that has saved the latina lover.
Who knew that the most powerful man in SC was some guy in a confederate closet from Chuck town?
Maybe we can put the closet confederate in charge of DSS. It can’t be any worse. Sanford must be a closet democrat. Staying around is going to make Sheheen Governor. Wait and see. Gee, as an old Republican, or RINO, as you put it, thanks Mark, for nothing.
By anonymous on July 16th, 2009 at 5:45 am
NEW PHOTO: “Argentine Maria Belen Chapur walks to her apartment after shopping at a supermarket in Buenos Aires, Tuesday, July 14, 2009.”
“Sanford also was MIA in 2008″
“S.C. Department of Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor attempted to track down Gov. Mark Sanford via e-mail and cell phone in June of 2008 — the day the governor has admitted to seeing his Argentine lover as their relationship turned physical.”
“Need contact number for (Sanford) ASAP,” Taylor wrote in an e-mail to a Sanford staffer at 7:19 p.m. on June 28, 2008.
NEW PHOTO:
http://www.thestate.com/154/story/865772.html?storylink=omni_popular
By >3 on July 16th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Hey A South Carolina Dead Polititian, sounds to me like you “roll over in my political grave” is more like “a milk-cow servant turning over in her grave.”
Listen for the slamming doors, Listen on the ship to shore, Listen hard; everytime the dogs bark.
I can see light coming from the holes, wake up skull fuck; shake the disease.
>3
By BIN News EdiToRiaL StaFF on July 16th, 2009 at 7:47 am
I am the politican inbred in this relationship SIC. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say much about you because I am a complete dumbass, and I’m working on the whole “not being a hypocrite” thing.
I just hope my bosses don’t find out I’m really a product of a private school who supports vouchers…..and I may or may not have a hint of down. They will stop paying me and I won’t be able to buy my spiderman comics.
By liz on July 16th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Everyone needs to watch these two videos from the Rachel Maddow Show.
Seems our South Carolina pols go to DC and change their religion. They start attending the C Street Church. which doesn’t appear to be what WE associate to church, Jesus and religion.
(( FITS CAN YOU GET A LIST OF SC FOLLOWERS/ MEMBERS OF C STREET PLEASE I know DeMint lives there now.))
Their Jesus is mean. He requires hate to be a follower according to the man who got inside C Street and presents the facts and information on the following clips.
Since I have lived through a situation described in these videos in real life,I beg people to understand the Governor hates all of you too. I am horrified and appalled to find these videos because they describe exactly what has happened to me over the past four years. I lost all my rights. IT IS FRIGHTENING.
.
ALL ABOUT MARK SANFORD’s C STREET Spiritual advisors and church – ” the Christian Mafia”?????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dox4jdW4UyQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArY8vvjohaQ
Where’d he go this time? What’s he doing? I believe the people of this state have a right to know when he sneezes right now. Read my story, you’ll want to know everytime Mark drinks water……
By CNSYD on July 16th, 2009 at 9:23 am
BIN aka Wolfe, when will you realize that the vast majority of people in SC could not care less about your team, the Criminal Tide. I used to read your blog but seldom even look at it now. BTW why have you not posted how Katrina money was used to build condos on Paul W. Bryant Dr. in Tuscaloosa? I am sure Tuscaloosa was really affected by Katrina. And no, I am not an Auburn fan or of any other SEC team.
By Pat McCright on July 16th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Please specify in detail all the job creation that Sanford has done and the denial of these jobs for SC by the legislature. This should be interesting. We are turning down jobs for SC? Give names so I don’t vote for them.
By Mab on July 16th, 2009 at 11:03 am
¡Egad! ¡anonymous!
All that hiking appears to have drained Maria of her vigor.
By Gomer on July 16th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Question for the panel.
What are the 3 biggest accomplishments of Governor Sanford’s 2 terms in office?
By 1+1=3 on July 16th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
A spokesman for the Governor’s Office told News19 that he and other staff members have spoken with Sanford several times during his vacation.
Of course, he’s with his wife – now if it was his soulmate he’d have his phone turned off
By 1+1=3 on July 16th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Another viewer wanted to know if the governor was required to file a “leave form” like some state employees are required to do.
“There is no leave policy for the governor, but you have to remember he works a lot of nights and weekends as well,” said the spokesman,
ha
By Jeffy on July 16th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
BIN how many hits to you get a day? 2? You and your mom
? Please don’t post here. We don’t care about your sad little blog.
By Joseph Reynolds on July 16th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
The longer Sanford stays in office..the more damage Democrats stand to due next year. They will run against him in every single election next year…and will win several if he doesnt leave soon.
By CNSYD on July 16th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
FITS, I know this is not where to post this but I did not know how else to reach you. FYI, I have apparently been banned from “Wolfe”, mainly for disagreeing with his Alabama fixation. He removed my posts and said I was an asshole (I guess his education consists of nothing but profanity). All I did was disagree with him. Apparently he can not handle that. My friend at least you let all sides speak. I don’t know what he is afraid of.
By anonymous on July 17th, 2009 at 8:29 am
RE: Governor Mark Sanford
“The night of June 24, his calendar says that his brothers, John and Bill, were in the Governor’s Mansion overnight, along with businessmen and Sanford supporters Jim Kuyk and Frank Zanin.”
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/jul/16/e_mails_portray_facets_governor89468/