It was reported: Cars can have sex!
Posted on 06/23/2009 5:25:58 PM PDT by pissant
South Carolina GOP Gov. Mark Sanford’s disappearing act is reviving an often-whispered, if rarely written, question about presidential hopefuls: Just how strange is too strange?
It takes a unique person to run for the White House, but the dividing line between endearingly quirky and just downright odd can often separate winners from losers.
Sanford’s solo stroll on the Appalachian Trail falls short of the character questions raised by changing your name and fudging your age (Gary Hart) or accusing an incumbent president’s campaign of trying to disrupt your daughter’s wedding (Ross Perot).
But is the straight-laced Republican base ready for a candidate whose idea of relaxation is leaving his wife and kids on Father’s Day weekend to commune with nature?
As an introduction to the American public, Sanford’s walkabout is unquestionably damaging.
Yet past political figures have recovered from inauspicious national debuts — see, for example, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s droning speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.
Where the Sanford story could be more fundamentally harmful to his political prospects is in what it suggests about his persona.
It’s one thing to be a millionaire who wears frayed slacks, as Sanford is known to do, but some veteran political strategists and observers believe this episode pushes him over the line between eccentricity and flat-out bizarre behavior.
“We’re talking about professional and personal issues of responsibility,” said longtime GOP ad man Alex Castellanos. “It’s not just that the governor of the state, charged with emergency management, disappears. But at the same time, on Father’s Day, he leaves his four kids and wife to go hiking and they don’t know where he is?”
Sanford is bumping up against a threshold in politics for what a state politician can get away with versus what voters will tolerate from presidential candidates.
As the political analyst Charlie Cook put it: “Governors can be quirky — presidents can’t be quirky.”
So it’s one thing, for example, for then-Gov. Jerry Brown to date the likes of rock star Linda Ronstadt and sleep on the floor of his apartment while governing California. But America wasn’t at the time — and probably still isn’t — ready for an ascetic bachelor in the White House.
In Sanford’s case, South Carolina politicos aren’t terribly surprised at this latest turn of events.
Beside the well-worn story of the governor cradling squealing piglets under his arms in the statehouse to make a point about pork-barrel spending, Sanford-did-what stories are legion in Columbia political circles.
They’re small incidents, but enough to raise eyebrows among the traditionalists who dominate the state’s political establishment.
As a member of Congress in the 1990s, he slept in his office to save money. Political insiders recount tales of his walking around barefoot in meetings in the state Capitol and even doing sit-ups at odd times. During his State of the State speech in 2006, he lost his train of thought and admitted he was daydreaming about a fishing trip with a pal.
Katon Dawson, the former state GOP chairman, recalled when Sanford disappeared from the Republican National Convention last year in St. Paul, Minn.
“He called me and said he was in back in South Carolina,” Dawson said. “He didn’t tell anybody.”
Dawson said he admired Sanford’s firm conservative principles but acknowledged that the soft-spoken governor was considerably different than the back-slapping good ole boy of southern political lore.
“He’s a long-distance marathon runner,” Dawson said. “A guy who enjoys the solitude and can take a lot of pain.”
While those traits can be helpful, it’s not exactly the typical profile for a national political hopeful — especially the solitude part.
“To run for president requires a steady diet of crackpot stew: start with borderline narcissism, add a bit of Messiah complex, stir in a dollop of paranoia and blend with delusions of grandeur,” explained longtime Democratic strategist Paul Begala.
So voters are already presented with individuals who are not, by most standards, normal.
Americans have demonstrated that they’ll tolerate marital indiscretions (again, see Clinton) or illicit substance use (see the past two presidents) in their commanders in chief. But weirdness they have a steady track record of rejecting.
Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter straddled the fine line, but they were more awkward and withdrawn than strange.
Hart, Perot, Brown, Bob Kerrey, Pat Robertson, Dennis Kucinich? None of them ever even won the nomination.
Their peculiarities took different forms — ranging from Kerrey as the more detached, post-modern type to Kucinich, who often appears as just plain flaky — but none passed the have-a-beer-with test.
Ed Rollins, who ran Perot’s ill-fated 1992 campaign for a time, recalled a conversation he had with the late Hamilton Jordan, another top strategist working for the Texas billionaire, after the two came to the conclusion that their candidate had no business controlling nuclear warheads.
Jordan, Rollins said, was worried that Perot might win.
“There is no way he is going to end up being president,” Rollins said he told Jordan. “This guy is nuts, and the country will find that out.”
No one is yet comparing Sanford to Perot, but as Rollins notes, voters have a discerning eye for the personality traits of their national politicians.
The good news for Sanford: It’s 2009, part of an era of short attention spans.
“Unless he buried a few bodies along the Appalachian Trail, I don’t think this will matter in the least,” said GOP strategist Stuart Stevens.
Sanford’s allies believe the governor is a victim of an irresistible summertime story and some in-state Republican adversaries who delight in making him look bad. They also emphasize that Sanford, who lost his father in high school, is a doting parent who spends considerable time with his four boys.
But narratives matter in politics and, with this move, he is playing into one of the most difficult to overcome — that of the odd duck.
I think you need to “grow up” this is about state government and a governor that pulled a five day disappearing act with no way to reach him and without letting the chain of command know that he wasn’t still a part of it.
“If she knew, why did she tell the media she didn’t know..”
It’s none of your business. What a married man and women do is their own business.
I am a South Carolinian. I was at first tempted to say this story was “much ado about nothing.” But that’s not true. This story lays bare the clear, selfish, hateful agenda of a number of politicians in the South Carolina REPUBLICAN Party. And I’m gonna NAME NAMES.
Governor Andre Bauer, whom I supported for Lt. Governor in 2002 & 2006, has apparently been itching for revenge since Gov. Sanford’s wife Jenny endorsed another candidate for Lt. Gov. in ‘06. When he couldn’t reach the governor “immediately” and the staff wouldn’t reveal Sanford’s whereabouts, HE went to the PRESS.
For those who don’t know, the Media HATES Sanford. They were only too GLAD to further the smear. They distorted the statements of both Mrs. Sanford and the Governor’s staff (from what I have gathered from my readings and admittedly limited sources) to make it appear that Governor Sanford was derelict in his duties.
Of course Sanford’s enemies in the Legislature took up the cause. Senate Pro Tem Glenn McConnell has proposed a bill to further control the actions, movements and choices of the Governor — even in his “personal” retreats and vacations — as if they haven’t emasculated the office of Governor already with their lust for Federal stimulus funds. Now, they get to seize more control in a thinly veiled political “coup... Read More” and kick Mark Sanford once again. And of course, terminal Sanford Critic and good ole boy Jake Knotts (R-Lexington) was quick to hop on that bandwagon.
I have ALWAYS liked Glenn McConnell, ALWAYS supported Andre Bauer for State-wide office — but if this scenario proves to be true, I will fight tooth and nail, support opponents as much as I possibly can, and REFUSE to vote for them for statewide office if this is indeed the way the scenario plays out.
Of course, I am nobody in SC — not even a member of the Republican Party (They are too liberal — and they inflicted David Beasley on us, after all). But THIS kind of treachery...?!
Do you have special knowledge, or just your OPINION. I have seen nothing that leads me to believe he has done anything wrong. What do you know differect than what hs been reported? You seem willing to believe the OPINION of others. Don't let facts get in your way, though... It's probably alright with you to smear people.
A political smear is just rumors reported as facts. I've got a bridge I want to sell you...
That sounds like a legit explanation. Tell Sanford he needs to clear the air and name names then. If you don’t fight back, and kick the idiots in the teeth, then you lose.
Sanford's been considered a contender for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination, has been a good, conservative governor, and has been getting good exposure, nationally, up to now, that is.
You've been spewing your own nonsense all day about this, and it's you who needs to man up and admit just who it is that you're shilling.
Romney, right? You Rombots are a sleazy lot.
You’ve proved time and again that you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. Hell, you won’t even admit what state you’re from. So go crawl back in your bunny hole, close the lid and munch a carrot.
I don’t care where my governor was hiding. I don’t need a governor to function. You obviously do. So go find some governor’s ass to attach your lips and have a nice day.
The Lt. Governor could not reach the governor and has been saying on national television that the governors staff lied yesterday when it claimed to have reached the governor.
Today by late afternoon the wife said that she had still not heard from the governor.
Today the WSJ reported this about what was taking place over the weekend.
>South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Reggie Lloyd, who oversees the governor’s security, raised alarms with high-ranking elected officials over the weekend, according to people familiar with the situation.<
The governor has let this story run through the nation for two days and will make his first appearence and his first effort to counter it tomorrow.
Fine, just let it play out. See where it goes. He’ll be a “nut” in the eyes of the very inattentive voting public.
LOL, yeah I've gone from being one of the original 'flying Imams' to being a Romney bot, that still doesn't explain this bizarre story with the disappearing governor.
I also suspect his wife may have fibbed about not knowing where he was.
State government needs to know the chain of command in an emergency and right now it looks like the state did not know that the governor had totally removed himself for a secret vacation off grid with his phone turned off.
Hope you’re paid by the word.
It was reported: Cars can have sex!
Says the guy that thinks that I am a Romney supporter. Do you think that Mitt Romney pays me for all the fine work I do for him here?
“And I’m gonna NAME NAMES.”
Go for it, preacher. I’ll back you 110%.
This whole episode made me think of the runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks. I caught myself making the wrong comparison but I also felt the same strange feeling about the whole thing.
That pretty much sums it up. I can't believe people are defending him. It defies all logic. What he did was completely irresponsible.
I don't care if his wife and his staff knew where he was (which yet isn't clear). He has obligations to officials in the state for which he may have to be reached to fulfill. It's clear that people who needed to be able to reach him were unable. For that, there's no excuse.
You’ve been a one-note wonder all day long, and actually even yesterday, on this single issue. That sort of singular focus isn’t the hallmark of a casual interest in the subject.
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