Mark Sanford

Former South Carolina Governor (January 2003-2011)

(Davis Turner/
Getty Images)

Why He Matters

Sanford's promising political career imploded in June 2009 when after a media frenzy and global manhunt, he admitted to disappearing to Argentina for a tryst with his mistress. His gubernatorial term is over in January 2011. He was replaced by Nikki Haley (R).

At a press conference addressing a five-day absence in which family and staff didn't know his whereabouts, Sanford resigned his seat as head of the Republican Governors Association and apologized to his wife and children. He didn't resign the governorship, but his wife, Jenny, later divorced him and he paid $74,000 to settle ethics charges regarding his alleged misuse of taxpayer money for private transportation. Criminal charges could still be filed despite the governor's agreement with the State Ethics Commission.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: chairman of the Republican Governor's Association (since November 2008); U.S. Representative (1994 to 2000); Owner of Norton&Sanford real-estate firm (1992 to 2002)
Birthday: May 28, 1960
Hometown: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Alma Mater: Furman University, B.A. 1983; University of Virginia, MBA 1988
Spouse: Jenny Sullivan Sanford

Religion: Episcopalian
Office: Office of the GovernorP.O. Box 12267Columbia, SC 29211
Email
Web site

Path to Power

Sanford traces his legendary stinginess back to his childhood. Growing up in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., his father, a successful heart surgeon, forced his entire family to sleep in a single room during the summer rather than spend money on an additional air conditioning unit.

Sanford's family spent vacations on their farm in Beaufort County, S.C., , before permanently relocating there when Sanford was 18-years-old. He graduated from Furman University in Greenville, S.C. in 1983 and earned an MBA. from the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business in 1988. After spending some time in New York, where he met his wife Jenny, he returned to South Carolina to become a real estate investor.

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He joined the Brumley Company, a commercial real-estate firm, in 1988, and began his own real-estate shop, Norton and Sanford, in Charleston in 1992.

Running for Congress

In 1994, the incumbent congressman from Charleston's 1st district, Arthur Ravenel, gave up his seat to run for governor and Sanford entered the race to replace him by painting himself as an outsider. Sanford had his wife manage his campaign and financed the effort with $100,000 of his own money.

He made a pledge to only serve three terms, refused to take money from any political action committees, promised not to raise taxes, and vowed that he wouldn't accept a pay raise unless the federal budget was balanced. Sanford came in second place in the first round of voting, but won the primary with 52 percent of the vote, and garnered 66 percent in the general election as Republicans swept into control of Congress.

Journey to the Governor's Mansion

Sanford kept true to his three-term pledge and returned to South Carolina in 2001.

He soon began planning for a gubernatorial run the next year. During the primaries, he faced a challenge from the state party's establishment candidate Lieutenant Governor Bob Peeler (R) and from Attorney General Charlie Condon (R), who portrayed himself as more genuinely conservative.

After winning in a runoff with 60 percent of the vote, Sanford went on to challenge the sitting Democratic incumbent Jim Hodges, who tried to paint the former congressman as a wealthy interloper from Florida. In the end, Sanford was able to appeal to the electorate by pledging to bring much needed change to the capital.

He won with 53 percent of the vote, boosted by a strong showing in Charleston and along the coast. He was reelected in 2006, commanding a 55 percent majority.

Scandal

But Sanford's political career dramatically stalled in summer 2009 when his longtime affair with an Argentinian woman was revealed.

In June 2009, Sanford disappeared from the public eye for at least five days. South Carolina journalists reported that no one - not even Sanford's wife - was sure of Sanford's location, and the governor remained unreachable by phone and email.

Eventually, Sanford's staff told reporters that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, which ultimately proved to be false.

At a wild June 24, 2009, news conference, Sanford acknowledged that he had misled his staff and betrayed his wife and children by striking up a year-long affair with a woman from Argentina.

The pair kept in touch over email for eight years and began their affair in the summer of 2008, the governor said. Sanford said he visited Buenos Aires at least three times since the relationship started.

Upon announcing the affair, Sanford resigned his position as head of the Republican Governors Association. "I've let down a lot of people," he said at his press conference. "That's the bottom line."

Despite increasing pressure to step down from the South Carolina legislature, Sanford never resigned. "I feel absolutely committed to the cause, to what God wanted me to do with my life," said Sanford. "I have got this blessing of being engaged in a fight for liberty, which is constantly being threatened."

Ethics Charges

But in March 2010, the same month that his divorce was announced, Sanford agreed to pay $74,000 in fines to settle 37 charges brought by the State Ethics Commission regarding his use of state planes for private business.

But the state attorney general could still bring legal charges in the matter.

The Issues

Sanford has argued that in order to thrive in the future, the GOP will have to rebuild its brand as the party that wants to reduce taxes and spending, and expand individual freedom. Although he considers himself socially conservative, Sanford doesn't wear his views on his sleeve, and has conceded that fiscal issues drive him more than cultural ones.

Aversion to Spending

During his six years on Capitol Hill, Sanford routinely made lonely votes against spending legislation he considered laden with pork. In 1997, the Republican even voted against a defense appropriations bill that included money for Charleston harbor, which was in his own district.

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Sanford's frugality extended beyond his voting record. When he stayed in Washington, he slept on a couch in his office rather than rent a room and once had his staff dig through another member's trash to scavenge for fax paper.The group Citizen's Against Government Waste declared him a "Taxpayer Superhero" and gave Sanford the top rating in all of Congress for his opposition to government spending.

Since becoming governor, Sanford has been in a constant state of war against the Republican-controlled legislature over spending, and has shown a flair for the dramatic. In 2004, a day after the legislature overturned 105 of his 106 budget vetoes, he came to the state house with two living piglets under his arms to make a point about pork-barrel spending. Sanford was one of only three governors to receive an "A" rating from the libertarian Cato Institute in its 2008 Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors.

An Independent Streak

Although Sanford is generally viewed as solidly conservative (he received a lifetime rating of 86 from the American Conservative Union during his time in Congress) , he has also marched to the beat of his own drummer during key moments.

During the 2000 South Carolina presidential primary, Sanford campaigned hard for John McCain when George W. Bush had the backing of most Republicans in the state and was seen as the choice of conservatives.Yet Sanford remained neutral during the 2008 presidential primary when McCain was again a candidate.

On foreign policy, Sanford voted against the 1998 resolution to bomb Iraq, which received nearly unanimous support in Congress. Asked by the American Conservative about the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he said, "I don't believe in preemptive war. For us to hold the moral high ground in the world, our default position must be defensive." Such stances could endear him to the Ron Paul (R-Texas), non-interventionist wing of the Republican Party while potentially alienating hawkish national security conservatives.

In 2007, Sanford declared himself a "conservative conservationist" in a Washington Post op-ed in which he claimed to have observed the effects of rising sea levels on the South Carolina coast. "I know the climate change debate isn't over, but I believe human activity is having a measurable effect on the environment," he wrote, and argued that conservative solutions were needed to stave off government intervention in the matter.

The Network

Sanford's inner circle starts with his wife Jenny, a former investment banker, who has managed every one of his campaigns. As governor, when his chief of staff departed, Sanford had his wife fill in temporarily.

In 2002, when he ran for governor as the anti-establishment candidate, he raised money from his connections to business and the contacts he made while playing an active role in the McCain presidential campaign.

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Additional Resources