OPINION: Gov. Sanford should resign 6/25/2009 12:20 AM For several months S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford gained national attention for his stubborn stance on the use of federal stabilization funds. Now he is receiving national scrutiny again in a far more troubling way. With about 18 months remaining in his second and final term, Gov. Sanford should resign from office.
In a press conference Wednesday following his baffling disappearance of nearly a week, the governor acknowledged he had been in Argentina, where he said he has ended an affair with a woman there that began about a year ago. As a husband and the father of four young sons, Sanford's first responsibility has to be his family. He cannot fulfill those family obligations while remaining governor of a state that's in severe economic crisis.
His affair, however, is a personal matter and should be treated as such. His bizarre missing governor act is of greater concern to this state and why he should leave office.
Governors, of course, don't have the intense security detail that would follow a sitting president. During his visits to Aiken, Sanford was often accompanied by a single staff member or two. Even when traveling alone or with his family, he would always be available to his chief of staff and other top people in his office.
It is simply astounding that the governor deliberately would withhold his location from his own staff and SLED - putting his spokesman in the inadvertent position of misleading the media and other public officials. Out of the country and unavailable to anyone, Sanford had made no provision to transfer power temporarily to Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer. As Bob McAlister, former chief of staff for the late Gov. Carroll Campbell said in published reports, "From a professional standpoint, this can't happen. It's very disconcerting."
For the past seven years, the tenure of Gov. Sanford has been continually frustrating. He has promoted some reasonable reforms, among them government restructuring and eliminating the practice of attaching legislation to unrelated bills at the last minute. But the governor's ceaseless unwillingness to communicate and compromise earned him only enmity from most legislators of both parties. He has never supported public education and has generally tried to undermine it - most recently with his efforts to turn down badly-needed federal funds for schools after major state cuts.
Tragically, Wednesday's news conference presented a different Gov. Sanford - perhaps for the first time - revealing himself as a human being with real emotion of sorrow and regrets. If he had brought emotion and empathy to his work as governor, the state would be better off and Sanford would be better off as a politician and public official. Now it may be too late.
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Comment Title: Open letter to Gov. Sanford
Dear governor. In the interest of good taste, your own well being, and the distraction from the really serious problems our nation faces; I have the following suggestions. 1. Get a lawyer. if you have one, listen to him. 2. Shut up. 3. Get an accountant and find out if you have anything left. 4 Lay off the booze. 5. Stay away from Dr. Feelgood. 6. Develop an interest in stamp collecting 7. Get a knife and fork, you're done
Posted by: Bruce On: 6/28/2009
Comment Title: Scott Hunter is a Sorry Judge of Character
Is this the same guy Aiken Standard publisher Scott Hunter endorsed for governor two times in both the Republican primaries and general elections?
Posted by: Jo On: 6/26/2009
Comment Title: To Mary P
We may not have funded THIS trip, but what about the one he now plans to reimburse? You are naive if you think he would have admitted to visiting his mistress ahead of time. Of course he had to wait to get caught before he forked over the payment for the trip. I am not a fan of Bauer, and I do not think Sanford's affair is a reason to resign. However, his breach of public trust and philandering on tax payer $$ are reasons to consider....
Posted by: Mary P. On: 6/25/2009
Comment Title: next door neighbor
NO! The taxpayers didn't get charged with the "hiking" trip. It's not too hard to figure out that if the trip was taxpayer funded he would have had to FILE travel papers, thus letting EVERYBODY know his whereabouts. Besides between he and his wife they have more expendable REAL dollars than the federal and state governments combined.
Posted by: More Relativism from the Republicans On: 6/25/2009
Comment Title:
It's astonishing to me that there are so many enablers in the GOP, the party that holds itself out to be the party of family values. I won't get into that any further, since to be quite honest I don't really care about the affair - that is indeed a personal matter. What is NOT a personal matter, and that is in fact a very public and non-partisan one, is that Sanford misled his staff who then misled us, left the country without telling anyone, and made no arrangements for temporary transition of his duties. The fact that nothing happened this time is irrelevant. The citizens of South Carolina deserve better, unless they accept this sort of irresponsibility in which case maybe they don't.
Posted by: next door neighbor On: 6/25/2009
Comment Title:
Yes, it is not the affair that should be the reason he should leave office. It is the fact that for an entire week, no one in this state knew where the governor was. That is absolutely mind-boggling. And a deal breaker. Also, did the tax payers pay for this "hiking" excursion?
Posted by: Sam On: 6/25/2009
Comment Title: Did Sanford have a traffic policeman pull a gun on him like Bauer?
How we forget the wreckless antics of Bauer. Sanford is no prince, but do we want a "boy" in the Mansion? We have 2 bad choices. Stick with Sanford for the few months left, then let the people decide.
Posted by: Local On: 6/24/2009
Comment Title:
Enough already! South Carolina was never in any danger. Cripes who would want to do anything to harm a bunch of unemployed,uneducated, welfare grubbing, ebt card toting citizens? You should know by now that the governership in SC is nothing more than a title. The Legislature runs the state. The General Assembly is the nuts and bolts and thats, that! Now, I don't know about the rest of you drama mamas and papas, but I've had enough of the sex, lies and emails saga it's time to take Sanford's pitiful mug off of the front page, the poll question and the most talked about section of this paper. With all of this hype one would think that Sanford is the only person on the entire planet to have an affair outside the marriage.
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