South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford Admits Affair

The governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford has held a press conference as a result of his 7 day disappearance where no one knew where he was at. This has caused a lot of speculation in the media. Well, Mark Sanford has explained his absence. The Governor admitted to having an affair with an unidentified women in Argentina. He apologized to everyone for this affair and said he wanted to reconcile with his wife, who knew of the affair prior to him going to Argentina. 

This was quite a shock to everyone watching the conference. I expected Mark Sanford to resign as governor because of his failed attempt to not accept the stimulus funds from the federal government. Well this was a shock that Mark Sanford was having an affair which had went on for about a year according to the governor. The first lady of South Carolina has known about this affair for 5 months and they have been trying to work through the problems.

He did resign as chairmen of the Republican Governor’s association. Several reporters asked if he was going to resign as Governor of South Carolina, but that question was not answered. I’m sure this announcement by Mark Sanford will dominate the news cycle over the next few days or weeks. I’m sure reporters are on a plane right now going to Argentina trying to find out the identity of the person which the South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford referred too in this press conference.

Mark Sanford Bio

Marshall Clement "Mark" Sanford, Jr. (born May 28, 1960) is an American Republican politician who has been Governor of South Carolina since 2003.

Early life

Before his senior year of high school, Sanford moved with his family to a 3,000-acre (12 km2) Coosaw Plantation near Beaufort, South Carolina from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where he grew up. Sanford attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. He received a B.A. in Business from Furman University in 1983 and an MBA from Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia in 1988. After graduating from Furman University his first job was as an Associate for Coldwell Banker in 1983. He then worked as Project Manager for Beachside Real Estate at the Isle of Palms, with Pat McKinney and Frank Brumley between 1984–1986. In 1987 while working towards his MBA he was trained at Goldman Sachs. After graduating with his MBA he took a position as a Financial Analyst with Chemical Realty Corporation (1988–1990). At the end of 1990 he moved back to Charleston, South Carolina and worked as a Real Estate Broker on Daniel Island for Brumley Company (1990–1991). Sanford founded Norton and Sanford Real Estate Investment, a leasing and brokerage company, in 1992. He still owns the company. In the early 1990s he moved to Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina with his wife Jenny and their four boys, Marshall, Landon, Bolton, and Blake.

Congress

In 1994, Sanford entered the Republican primary for the Charleston-based 1st Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. The seat had come open after four-term incumbent Arthur Ravenel gave it up to make an unsuccessful run for governor. Despite having never run for office before, he finished second in a crowded primary behind Van Hipp, Jr, a former George H. W. Bush Administration official. Sanford defeated Hipp in the runoff, and breezed to victory in November. He was reelected twice, both times facing only minor-party opposition.

While in Congress, Sanford was a staunch conservative (he garnered a lifetime rating of 92 from the American Conservative Union), but displayed an occasional independent streak. He often would be one of two members of Congress, along with Ron Paul, voting against bills that otherwise got unanimous support.  For example, he voted against a bill that preserved sites linked to the Underground Railroad. He opposed pork barrel projects even when they benefited his own district; in 1997 he voted against a defense appropriations bill that included funds for Charleston’s harbor. Seeing himself as a "citizen-legislator," he did not run for reelection in 2000, in keeping with a promise to serve only three terms in the House.

Sanford was listed in the House roll as "R-Charleston," even though he lived on Sullivan’s Island.

Governor of South Carolina

First term

He entered the gubernatorial election of 2002; he first defeated Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler in the Republican primary and then defeated the Democratic incumbent, Jim Hodges, in the general election, by a margin of 53% to 47% to become the 115th Governor of South Carolina. In accordance with South Carolina law, Sanford was elected separately from the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, Andre Bauer.

In 2003, just after becoming governor, Sanford joined the Air Force Reserve and attended two week’s training in Alabama with his unit, the 315th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron. While in training, Sanford did not transfer power to the state’s lieutenant governor, saying he would be in regular contact with his office, and would transfer authority in writing only if he were called to active duty.

Sanford sometimes had a contentious relationship with the South Carolina General Assembly, even though it is controlled by his party. The Republican-led SC House of Representatives overrode 105 of Sanford’s 106 budget vetoes on May 26, 2004. The following day, Sanford brought live pigs into the House chamber as a visual protest against "pork projects".

Sanford rejected the Assembly’s entire budget on June 13, 2006. Had this veto stood, the state government would have shut down on July 1. The governor explained his veto as being the only way to get the cuts he desired, and that using the line item veto would have been inadequate as well as impossible. However, in a special session the following day, both houses dismissed Sanford’s call for reform by overriding his veto – effectively restoring their original budget (which indeed contained many reforms Sanford had previously called for).

Sanford professes to be a firm supporter of limited government, and many pundits have described his views as being libertarian in nature. Most recently, he has embarked on an ambitious plan to reform methods of funding the state’s public education system. This would include measures such as school vouchers – aimed at introducing more competition into the school system as a means of fostering improvement. This would also allow more choice for parents who wish for their children to be educated in a religious or independent setting easier access at doing so. The plan, known as "Put Parents In Charge," would provide around $2,500 per child to parents who chose to withdraw their children from the state’s public school system and instead send them to independent schools. Sanford has framed this plan as a necessary market-based reform.

Sanford has also sought to reform the state’s public college system. Sanford has criticized these schools as focusing too much on separately creating research institutions and not on educating the young adults of South Carolina. Sanford has suggested that they combine some programs as a means of curbing tuition increases. The schools did not respond positively to this suggestion, however, causing Sanford to remark that "if any institution ultimately feels uncomfortable with our push toward coordination, they can exit the system and go private."

Sanford’s first term included other controversies. He was criticized for missing a budget debate and was harshly criticized in a July 2003 article in The Greenville News for delays in signing a piece of domestic violence legislation. A Time Magazine article in November 2005, critical of Sanford, said that some "fear his thrift has brought the state’s economy to a standstill."

According to Survey USA, Sanford’s approval ratings ranged from 47% to 55% during 2006.

Reelection and second term

Campaign

His campaign for reelection in 2006 began by Sanford winning the June 13th Republican Primary over Oscar Lovelace, a family physician from Prosperity, with 65% of the vote to Lovelace’s 35%. His Democratic competitor in the November elections was state senator Tommy Moore, whom Sanford beat by 55%-45%.

On election day, Sanford was not allowed to vote in his home precinct because he did not have his voter registration card. The governor was obliged to go to a voter registration office to get a new registration card. "I hope everybody else out there is as determined to vote as I was today," he said. Sanford’s driver’s license had a Columbia address, but Sanford was trying to vote at his home precinct in Sullivan’s Island. According to NBC, Sanford declared that it would be his last campaign.

Political actions

In dissent with the Republican Party of South Carolina, Sanford, whose faith is Episcopal, opposes the faith-based license plates his state offers, marketed largely to the state’s conservative evangelical citizens. After allowing the law to pass without his signature, he wrote, "It is my personal view that the largest proclamation of one’s faith ought to be in how one lives his life."

After the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which Governor Sanford strongly opposed and publicly criticized before and after its passage by Congress and presidential signing, Sanford initially indicated he might not accept all of the funds allotted by the spending law to South Carolina. He was criticized by many Democrats and some moderate Republicans both in his state and outside who noted South Carolina’s 9.5% unemployment rate (one of the highest in the country) and complained that Sanford wasn’t doing enough to improve economic conditions in his state, which they felt could be alleviated by the stimulus money. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of California, suggested that if Sanford or other governors rejected their portion of stimulus funds, he would be "happy" to take them instead.

On March 11, 2009, Sanford became the first United States governor to formally reject a portion of the federal stimulus money earmarked by Congress for the state of South Carolina. Sanford compromised to accept the federal money on condition that the state legislature provide matching funds to pay down the South Carolina state debt. On April 3, 2009, Sanford signed paperwork enabling South Carolina to receive the bailout money; however, he maintained that this signing was simply a bureaucratic maneuver to avoid the federal funds allocated to SC being redistributed to other states.

 

The whereabouts of Governor Sanford were unknown to the public, including his wife and State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for him, beginning on June 18, 2009. His state and personal phones were turned off and he did not respond to phone or text messages. That prompted some to believe that he was missing and raised questions about who was acting as governor of South Carolina. His wife stated that she was not concerned and that he needed time away from their children to write something.[28] Sanford has apparently made similar disappearances in the past, although this was the longest.[9] After media speculation grew, Sanford’s office on June 22 stated that he told them where he was going before he left and that he would be "difficult to reach." Later that day, Sanford’s spokesman, Joel Sawyer, told the press that Sanford was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Some South Carolina politicians voiced concerns about the governor’s behavior. Lieutenant Governor André Bauer announced that he could not "take lightly that his staff has not had communication with him for more than four days, and that no one, including his own family, knows his whereabouts."[30] The Senate Minority Leader, Democrat John Land, also questioned the fact that Sanford was absent over the Father’s Day weekend, arguing that "it’s one thing for the boys to go off by themselves, but on Father’s Day to leave your family behind? That’s erratic."

On June 23, Sawyer reported that Sanford had contacted his staff that morning—after apparently being out of touch with them for five days—and expressed surprise at all of the attention to his absence. Sawyer announced that the governor had decided to return to work the next day.

On June 24, Sanford arrived at the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport, on a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he had in fact gone. Sanford said that he had considered hiking the Appalachian trail, but at the last minute decided to do something "exotic". When asked why his staff said he was hiking, Sanford replied, "I don’t know." He later said "in fairness to his staff," he had told them he might do such hiking. Sanford said he cut his trip short after his chief of staff, Scott English, told him his trip was gaining a lot of media attention and he needed to come back. These events prompted Republican state senator Jake Knotts to comment, "Lies. Lies. Lies. That’s all we get from his staff. That’s all we get from his people. That’s all we get from him."

Later on June 24, Sanford admitted that he had been unfaithful to his wife and requested a "zone of privacy" for his family. He also said he was resigning as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

Role in 2008 presidential election

In 2006, before the midterm elections, some people were discussing the possibility of Sanford running for president. He said that he would not run, and claimed that his re-election bid would be his last election, win or lose. After Super Tuesday in 2008, Governor Sanford received some mention as a potential running mate for the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, John McCain.

Sanford publicly aligned himself with McCain in a March 15, 2008, piece in the Wall Street Journal. Likening the presidential race to a football game at halftime, Sanford noted that he "sat out the first half, not endorsing a candidate…But I’m now stepping onto the field and going to work to help John McCain. It’s important that conservatives do the same."

On January 11, 2008, shortly before the South Carolina presidential primaries (R Jan 19, D Jan 26), Governor Sanford published a guest column in the Columbia newspaper The State. In the article, "Obama’s Symbolism Here", Sanford wrote, "I won’t be voting for Barack Obama for president," but noted the "historical burden" borne by South Carolinians on the topic of race. He advised voters in South Carolina to take note of the symbolism of Obama’s early success, with the knowledge that South Carolina was a segregated state less than fifty years earlier, and discouraged voting either for or against Obama on the basis of his race.

In a January 18, 2008 interview with Wolf Blitzer, Sanford discussed his Obama article. Wolf Blitzer asked, "Give us your mind-set. Why did you think it was so important to write this piece right now at this critical moment?" Governor Sanford responded, "Well, it plays into a larger conversation that we’re having as a family of South Carolinians on, in fact, the  structure of our government." Also, Wolf Blitzer showed Sanford clips of recent comments made by John McCain and Mike Huckabee about the Confederate flag and asked the Governor, "All right, two different positions, obviously. Who’s right in this?" Sanford responded, "Well, it depends who you talk to." Sanford elaborated that "if you were to talk to the vast majority of South Carolinians, they would say that we do not need to be debating where the Confederate flag is or is not."

Sanford attracted derision in the liberal blogosphere and among pundits and analysts on the left for a gaffe during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on July 13, 2008, when he had difficulty answering a question about differences between Senator McCain and incumbent President George W. Bush on economic policy. "I’m drawing a blank, and I hate when I do that, especially on television," joked Sanford.

Possible 2012 candidacy

As early as January 2008, there has been anticipation that Mark Sanford would run for President in 2012, and online support groups have sprung up voluntarily on virtual social networks like Facebook in support of a Sanford ticket.

Further boosting Sanford’s profile in advance of a potential candidacy, which the governor has neither ruled out nor expressly hinted at,[46] he was elected as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association in November 2008and was cited by Michael S. Steele, the Chairman of the Republican Party as one of four "rising stars" in the GOP (alongside Governors Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Sarah Palin of Alaska) in February 2009.

On February 22, 2009, Governor Sanford declined to rule out a possible presidential bid in 2012, though he professed to have no current plans to run for national office.

Some in the media believe that Sanford’s brief June 2009 disappearance may damage any possible presidential aspirations, and was called by The Washington Post "a decidedly odd move for someone who is seen as a likely presidential candidate in 2012."

 

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