Sanford Will Be Tough To Beat

You’ve got to admit one thing about Mark Sanford: He knows how to win elections. A 14-point GOP runoff victory this week over former Charleston County Councilman Curtis Bostic was the 12^th straight time the former governor won outright or placed first in a crowded primary.
Back in 1994, an unknown Sanford burst onto the political scene. In the GOP primary, he beat better-known candidates like former state Sen. Mike Rose and Bob Harrell, father of the state’s current House speaker. The only time Sanford ever came in second was in that 1994 primary when he garnered 19 percent (10,568 votes) to 31 percent for Van Hipp Jr., then a former chair of the state GOP and a deputy assistant secretary of the Army. In the runoff, Sanford beat Hipp by 2,383 votes. In 1996 and 1998, he had no major party challenges and won re-election handily.
Sanford left Congress on a term-limits pledge and seemed to be done with politics. But, surprising many, he got itchy and ran for governor in 2002. He topped the field of seven in the GOP primary and beat former Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler in a runoff by a 20-point margin. He went on to beat incumbent Gov. Jim Hodges by a 53-47 margin in the general election. Four years later, he handily won a GOP primary and later re-election.
There’s no avoiding that Mark Sanford is the consummate campaigner. In every race, he adapts. He sticks to his message. He runs with the passion of an acolyte of whatever he’s pushing. In the 1990s and as a gubernatorial candidate, his mantra was libertarian economics — cut government spending and be so fiscally conservative that you write on both sides of a Post-it note.
Following Sanford’s much-publicized fall from grace while governor, he has been talking squarely to the camera this year with a message of conservatism mixed with old-fashioned religious redemption. His campaign erects big plywood signs that say “Sanford saves tax $,” making it look like his professional campaign is so tapped out that it has to make its own signs. Hogwash. The wooden signs are more expensive (and heavier) than the slick cardboard ones, but Sanford knows the homemade signs look better for his image.
The only person now standing in the way of Sanford returning to Congress is Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Democratic neophyte believed to have a chance, in part, because she’s the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert.
But if Busch is going to win, she’s going to have to get mean enough to peel the paint off today’s Sanford and his message that he’s seen the light. Remember what the lead character in the Netflix series “House of Cards” said about people on the comeback: “Redemption narratives are powerful stories.”
For Busch to win, she’s going to have to raise significant money and focus on the thing Sanford doesn’t want to talk about — how he was “absent without leave” from the state when he jetted down to Argentina to see his mistress but told his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.
In military communities like Charleston and Beaufort, the message of Sanford abandoning his post to fuel his personal needs might be the only thing that Busch can use to win. But will she? Talking about how Sanford did little in Congress in his six years in Washington — other than sleep on a couch and vote against funding for the Cooper River Bridge — isn’t going to upset GOP rank-and-file voters.
Several years ago when I ran (and lost) in the First District for Congress, I realized one big thing: If the ballot had a choice for “no one” to represent them in Washington, they would probably vote for that more than other choices. In the 2013 reincarnation of candidate Sanford, they just might get what they really want.
One thing is for sure: Regardless of which candidate wins the congressional seat in the May 7 special election, the big winner will be the comedian, Stephen Colbert, just like Steve Stegelin, Statehouse Report’s cartoonist, penned in this week’s full issue of StatehouseReport.com.
Andy Brack is publisher of Statehouse Report. He can be reached at: brack@statehousereport.com