Free Republic

Mark Sanford leads in early returns

Nothing says “let’s change Washington” like re-electing a disgraced former Congressman who vowed to serve only three terms before tossing his hat in the ring again this year. With all precincts reporting, unofficial results show Sanford received about 37 percent of the vote in the southern coastal district. It was unclear who he would face in the April 2 GOP runoff.Former Charleston County councilman Curtis Bostic held a slim lead over state Sen. Larry Grooms for second place. But the margin is so narrow, less than one percent, that it will trigger an automatic recount. Teddy Turner, the son of...

The standard disclaimer: Yes, PPP is left-leaning (they're Kos's pollster) so you may, if you're so inclined, conclude that they're trying to depress Republican turnout/boost Democratic turnout in the upcoming special election with these numbers. And now the obligatory footnote: They were pretty darned accurate in last year's presidential polling.I'm skeptical that even a tarnished GOP nominee is vulnerable in a district like SC-1 that has a Partisan Voter Index of R+11 (which is why I thought the general election would be a walkover), but that's what makes this data potentially significant. Is Sanford's image so tarnished that he'd actually...

Former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is facing a runoff against Curtis Bostic for the GOP nomination for the state’s 1st Congressional District seat, which was vacated when Tim Scott was appointed to the Senate. One would think that Sanford’s infamous abandonment of his post to indulge in a fling with his Argentinian mistress would disqualify him from serious consideration by those who treasure “family values” or who think using public money for a dalliance isn’t the sign of a true fiscal conservative.more...

‘Mark Sanford Gets Resurrected” — it’s the perfect headline for Easter Week. Sanford, the South Carolina congressman-turned-governor who fell from grace (and from office) when he surreptitiously slipped off to Argentina to meet a lover, is back. Polls seem to indicate that he’ll coast to victory in a runoff against Curtis Bostic to fill the House seat Tim Scott vacated when he was appointed to the Senate. Though Bostic has positioned himself as far to the right as possible — the URL for his campaign website is StopSpending.com, and Rick Santorum recently stumped for him — Sanford has touted his...

Disgraced former Governor Mark Sanford easily won the runoff election for the Republican nomination in South Carolina's First Congressional District. He will face Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of comedian Steve Colbert, in the special election next month. From The Hill: The former governor's runoff win seemed likely as of two weeks ago, when he finished more than 20 percentage points ahead of Bostic in the first round of voting. Bostic got off to a slow start in the two-week primary runoff, hampered by a lack of funds, and while he secured some high-profile endorsements, including from former Sen. Rick...

I find that the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza usually plays things pretty much down the middle, and subscribe to his Fix email blast. So it came as an unpleasant surprise to find in my inbox a little while ago a Cillizza email, linking to his current Fix column, tthat referred to Mark Sanford as "the turd in the political punch bowl." View the screengrab here.

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's (R) ex-wife is accusing him of trespassing at her home and the two are due in court two days after his congressional election, according to a report from the Associated Press. According to court documents obtained by the AP, Jenny Sanford, the state's former first lady, caught him leaving her home in early February while using his cell phone as a flashlight and filed a complaint the next day. The couple divorced after he publicly admitted to an extramarital affair in 2009 and, according to their divorce settlement, aren't allowed to enter each other's...

Following revelations that his ex-wife accused him of trespassing on her property earlier this year, former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford (R) has lost the support of his national party. The news comes as controversy continues to swirl around Sanford and his personal life — a process that began with his well-publicized 2009 affair but was inflamed, the Washington Post has learned, when one of the Sanfords’ sons met Mark Sanford’s former mistress for the first time the night he won the GOP nomination. The National Republican Congressional Committee on Wednesday took the unusual step of telegraphing that it will...

According to Public Policy Polling, anyway. Granted, polling is especially with a special election, because it’s difficult to really gauge what turnout is going to look like … but it’s kind of starting to look like, if any Republican could somehow possibly manage to lose this deeply crimson seat, Sanford could. PPP’s newest poll on the special election in South Carolina finds Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch expanding her lead to 9 points over Mark Sanford at 50/41. Green Party candidate Eugene Platt polls at 3%.Colbert Busch’s lead is on the rise for several reasons. She has a 51/35 advantage with...

If Mark Sanford had been asked in the early months of 2009 where he saw himself four years down the line, he probably would not have answered, “Standing on a sidewalk in front of a folding music stand, pretending to debate a poster with Nancy Pelosi’s likeness on it.” But that’s exactly what the former South Carolina governor was up to in Charleston on Wednesday: conducting the stunt as part of an effort to turn around his foundering U.S. House campaign. Sanford’s attempt to draw attention to his Democratic opponent’s reluctance to debate him risked underscoring how his once promising...

We need help in SC-01. Mark Sanford is running slightly behind Democrat Elizabeth Colbert-Busch thanks to a ton of Nancy Pelosi's money. Now we could debate whether Sanford was the best candidate or not for Republicans but it is what it is. The 2nd place guy, Curtis Bostic, has many supporters pledging to write in his name. Even Bostic's son is encouraging it on his Twitter account. We need to encourage Bostic to do the right thing and discourage his supporters from writing in any name and encourage them to vote for Mark Sanford (even if it's not an "endorsement"...

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's (R) attempted political resurrection has turned the state’s House special election into one of the most unusual races in recent memory.  He's been damaged by personal accusations and peculiar missteps, and responded in ways previously unimagined by political operatives. Senior Republicans believe Sanford could still win in the heavily conservative district on May 7 — but it won’t be easy.  Or pretty.  Here are the five strangest moments of the campaign.1. Sanford asks his ex-wife Jenny Sanford to be his campaign manager Jenny Sanford was her husband’s campaign manager and top political adviser for...

In their first and only debate ahead of a May 7 special election for the House, Mark Sanford (R) and Elizabeth Colbert Busch (D) sparred over budgets, guns, and — of course — the Republican candidate’s personal life. Colbert Busch, a senior administrator at Clemson University, described herself as a “tough independent businesswoman” who understood budgets from her time in the private sector. Sanford, the former congressman and governor, positioned himself as a veteran lawmaker with a “twenty year track record of trying to do something about the way the government spends.” Although South Carolina’s First District is considered GOP-leaning,...

Elizabeth Colbert Busch seeks to distance herself from national Democrats “It’s cutting into Medicare benefits and it’s having companies lay off their employees because they are worried about the cost of it,” she said at a debate. Colbert Busch, who is running in a special election against former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford for South Carolina's 1st congressional district, noted while there are some good parts of the health care law, she was troubled by it's cost and the burden it could put on employers. "Obamacare is extremely problematic, it is expensive, it is a $500 billion cost than we...

It is an amazing testament to how bad the other candidates were that Mark Sanford ran away with the race in South Carolina’s first congressional district. A deeply flawed man, he was the one guy the primary voters knew wouldn’t go wobbly in Washington. But they, and I, presumed he was over the issues with his ex-wife. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago we learned things were not settled. The NRCC and GOP abandoned Mark Sanford as a result. In a race the GOP could still — even now — win, the GOP decided it would rather lose than win....

Key passage: I want to commend the voters of the 1st Congressional District of South Carolina who support Mark Sanford. They have the courage to toss aside lifelong convictions to embrace the sex pioneer of our time. They have rejected the religious teachings of their Bible-thumping preachers and tossed the false sanctity of marriage into the trashcan. Sanford’s fellow pioneers are teaching their children the invaluable lesson that traditional values are nothing more than a scam. These voters are telling the sanctimonious, self-righteous and hypocritical opponents of Mark Sanford, “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”

PPP's final poll of the special election in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District finds a race that's too close to call, with Republican Mark Sanford leading Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch 47-46. The 1 point lead for Sanford represents a 10 point reversal from PPP's poll of the race two weeks ago, when Colbert Busch led by 9 points at 50-41. Sanford has gotten back into the race by nationalizing it and painting Colbert Busch as a liberal. A plurality of voters in the district- 47%- say they think Colbert Busch is a liberal compared to 43% who characterize her as...

The numbers are in and former governor (I’ll leave the phrase “disgraced former governor” to the sour grapes Democrat media) Mark Sanford beat comedian Steven Colbert’s sister. Since she lost there is no need to identify her as anything else because that is what she started as and that is what she remains. Congressman-elect Mark Sanford got 54% and even though Steven Colbert’s sister’s name was on two lines and South Carolina allows aggregate vote counting she got 45%. One of the lines Steven Colbert’s sister was on was the Working Family Party’s. This is a Communist/George Soros bought and...

With the victory of disgraced former governor Mark Sanford in the recent South Carolina congressional race, there are bound to be those who would equate his supporters with Bill Clinton's. After all, both men were unfaithful to their wives. Both men lied to their constituents about it. And both men had supporters who voted party over principle, didn't they? Not exactly. For sure, there are Republicans imbued with the libertine spirit of the age who, often sexually compromised themselves, can easily justify Sanford's behavior. There are Republicans who buy into the tripe that a politician's "personal life" should have no...