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.
This is what the WSJ reported today. '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'
I totally agree. And I am perplexed at those who argue otherwise.
When stealing taxpayer’s money is involved, treachery is the rule.
It was taylor made by the media to give that impression.
As a group, voters in the US can be remarkably uninformed. But, let one whiff of crazy get in the air and it’s over. Any political junkie would tell you that.
It needs to be nipped in the bud before the impression sinks in.
How old is he ? you don’t think he’s to young to have Alzheimer’s ? Dementia ?
Not if I valued the ability to breathe.
You don’t suppose he had a mild stroke and didn’t realize he had one and effected his memory and cognition ability ?
I find this to be an incredibly bizarre story I ignored it most of yesterday assuming that it just couldn’t be true in this modern day, especially post 9/11 but by later yesterday I saw that no explanations were being presented and I started posting on it, today it only got worst.
For most of America this is our first close look at Governor Sanford the man and potential Commander in Chief and this story and the way it is not being handled by him is devastating to his image.
Tomorrow better be a heck of an appearance because at this moment this guy doesn’t seem like a rock of stability and responsibility in these days of Homeland Security and sudden catastrophes.
first, he is recharging, then he is writing something,
then he is hikeing
His wife doesn’t know where he is, then she does.
4 days
To many stories. If there is no there, there, why all the mystery and Sanford not up front from the get go.
4 days in his small state might not be a big deal but in other states this would not fly.
Maybe he is just too self absorbed and irresponsible, supposedly he is eccentric in his self indulgences of doing what he wants, when he wants.
This is a comment that needs to be addressed:
“Just how strange is too strange?”
I imagine that the surrender poodle, Jon Martin of Political, would find it strange that Col Moultrie stored nine and twelve pound cannons in his barn in 1775.
The surrender poodle Jon Martin would also find it “strange” that Col Moultrie turned back a British invasion fleet that attacked Chalston on June 29, 1776.
I’m sure that the wimp, Jon Martin, would be horrified that Col. Moultrie and the 1st and 2nd South Carolinia regiments battled for our freedom some 250 years ago and helped give us our freedom.
The sniveling coward Jon Martin would also be upset that the president of the South Carolina legislature - I believe it was John Rutledge, correct me if I’m wrong - awarded his sword to a member of the brave men who defended the harbor on Johnston Island.
I have the utmost respect for my South Carolinian friends, past and present.
I just don’t understand why he would not tell the “acting” governor that he will be out of pocket for a few days. This would have stopped all of this. I think at the very least he needed to speak with the Lieutenant Governor...like him or not I think that is your responsibility to do this.
DU: "We don't care what Rush and those RWaholes are saying about The O. They can take a flying leap off a tall building. "
Now if it was a Hollywood liberal screenwriter I'd be thinking of "Runaway Governor" starring Adam Sandler, release 2010 Holiday Season. Or/And possibly a TV series 2011/12 season
You guessed right!
You can listen to them online, WLS is the most listened to radio station on the web.
cannot prove where he was born
has no friends from college
wrapped himself in Chicago-style politics
has no experience running a business
has no lengthy experience running a senate office
had no private sector experience as an employee to speak about
has to have everything scripted for him
And yet the media suck up to him every chance they get? I think THAT is strange.
The lieutenant governor is a political rival and has his hand in stirring up the whole thing, napscoordinator. If SC is like NC, the elections are separate. It’s entirely possible to have a governor and a lt. governor who are at each other’s throats, even if they’re from the same party, and they are from the same party.
I agree that they were not liked (or it appears so). They do have separate elections, but Sanford was done with his second term so he would not be running for Governor again. Now I totally understand being a political rival. I am sure that there are many many out there, but all Governor Sanford had to say was “I am out of town for four days. You are acting govenor until I get back”. We do this all the time in the military even when the CO/XO hate each other (yes that is the case more times than not...lol).
Or your top aide.
Heck, I'm just an analyst and I let my company know what I'm up to weekdays.
And then he decides Father's Day is the day to go disappear on his family.
You wanna be governor or president? You just can't go disappear in the woods for five days. Not in the modern age. This is really curious behavior.
As convoluted and strange as this whole situation is, Sanford would have had to make a public statement to that effect, in order to have avoided what has happened. His second in command is not being honest.
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