South Carolina Ping
Posted on 10/27/2005 9:44:01 AM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
Gov. Mark Sanford’s visit this week to the Republican battleground state of Arizona has tongues wagging anew over whether he is preparing for a run for the White House.
Sanford was in Phoenix on Tuesday and Wednesday. He gave a speech to the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank, Tuesday night. Sanford raised money for his 2006 re-election while he was there.
He was feted at a fund-raising breakfast the next morning at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel by Barry Goldwater Jr. and Republican state leaders, according to a Phoenix newspaper.
A Sanford spokesman said the governor was in Arizona at the invitation of the Cato Institute, another conservative policy organization.
It is Sanford’s second major event in a key state in as many months. In September, supporters held a fund-raiser for Sanford in Ohio, another key presidential battleground state. The event was sponsored in part by the Cincinnati Reds baseball team.
The vote in Ohio swung the 2004 election to President Bush over U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. Arizona is a bastion of conservatism that plays a major role in selecting the GOP nominee.
Sanford also visited Iowa in July as part of a National Governors Association conference. Iowa is traditionally the first state to select a party’s presidential nominee.
Sanford’s travels raise questions, said presidential scholar Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia.
“I have to admit, the pattern of travel is suspicious,” Sabato said. “Traditionally, it’s been a dead giveaway” that a candidate is considering a run for president.
Sabato was in South Carolina last week for a speaking engagement and said he was asked often about Sanford’s plans.
“At least half a dozen people asked me whether he was running. And these are politicians. They’re getting the definite impression his ambition is larger than the South Carolina State House.”
Sabato said there is one key state missing from Sanford’s national travels: New Hampshire.
New Hampshire, more so even than Iowa, Sabato said, is the state were politicians with national aspirations go to test the waters. New Hampshire’s presidential preference primary follows the Iowa caucuses during election years.
“The instant we find (Sanford) in New Hampshire — whatever the rationale — we’ll know that he’s serious,” Sabato said.
It was unclear Wednesday whether Sanford has ever visited New Hampshire.
South Carolina Democrats were quick to accuse Sanford of abandoning his post.
“South Carolina has the nation’s fourth-highest jobless rate,” said Senate Minority Leader John Land, D-Clarendon. “He ought to be planning for how to get us out of this job crisis instead of his next swank dinner with out-of-state campaign contributors.”
Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said Sanford was in Arizona with “like-minded conservatives, the polar opposite of John Land.”
“Compared to a year ago, the unemployment rate is down and there are 4,700 more people working in this state,” Sawyer said.
According to the state Employment Security Commission, South Carolina’s unemployment rate was 6.6 percent in September, down from 6.9 percent a year ago. The state’s unemployment rate in January 2003, the month Sanford took office, was 6 percent.
Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com
Allen/Sanford 2008!!
Sanford for pres ping
Wow. I had suspended my ping list because I was all but convinced he wasn't going to run.
Since then I've become a Pence guy but I still really like Sanford! Good article!
Thanks for the ping.
You have a Sanford ping list? Can you add me to it?
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