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.
He jetted to Juneau to plan 2012 strategy with Gov Palin.
When those in other states stop hiring illegals who first come into Calif. and by Fed. mandate we have to support them by the Billions a year, prblems solved.
Nice try, Oztrich boy.
Obuma is destroying the nation. We care about that.
Gov. Sanford went hiking. So what?
Your effort at equivalency was pitiful.
Try again. Maybe you can find some example of Gov. Sanford stealing and nationalizing GM.
Go ahead and look. I’ll wait.
The point that was being made is that during these post 9/11 times, when anything unexpected can happen, the gov. should NOT be unable to be reached "until he checks in".
“California, has earthquakes without notice, fires that takeout thousands of homes”
Okay, you got me curious. Which CA governor has thwarted earthquakes and saved thousands of homes?
Please list years, homes saved and earthquakes stopped.
The big thing here is not knowing that the governor was going to be unavailable, that is where precious time is lost.
The emergency happens and everybody thinks that the governor is here so they call him and then they call some other people and it wastes valuable time before they figure out that there is no governor and there won’t be a governor, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack to find out that the governor has eluded his security and his cell phone is off could cause a huge level of concern and activity on it’s own aside from what ever the initial attack consisted of.
Sounds like my kind of guy. Fishing beats a political convention full of pompous asses any day.
I try to please.
In view of this lost week, that daydreaming story doesn’t seem so folksy and nice.
So in California your Lt. Governor is just a figurehead?
If a mayor has to ask for more resources, the gov. is asked and helps when he is in place.
We are all lucky, Sandy will not get any further than S.C. and you folks can enjoy his company.
What is your source that Knotts made the call to Sanford’s appointee rather than Lloyd raising the alarm as the WSJ says?
Are you saying that if a state gov. goes off without his security detail to a place where cell reception is out AND his second in command doesn't know about it BUT that's okay? Wow....shaking my head.
Hey CA, when you had to evacuate your home along with 500,000 others here, it was nice to know the State could also be counted on with out having to find where the Gov. was.
After reading thru my various posts, I may have improperly insulted you.
My apologies, sir.
____________________
If I insulted any other people, you’ll need to wait till tomorrow. In the meantime, fill your bathtub with 1,000 crabs, stick your face in, the crabs will pick out the dead skin and wake up tomorrow looking more youthful.
BTW, no charge.
A rumor at this point, that has the distinct ring of truth to it, if you knew the shenanigans that have transpired thus far.
We’ll find out tomorrow.
You can make all the excuses for Sandy, he was a non starter to begin with, now it is double so.
Too bad, I think that you tried to pass it off as more than that, what is the source of your rumor?
No problem, fairly thick-skinned here. Besides, we’re used to y’all banty rooster hotheads from down there, lol.
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