Republican Mark Sanford won the special election in South Carolina;’s First Congressional District yesterday. He defeated, Elizabeth Colbert Busch (inevitably described as sister of TV comedian Steven Colbert,) 54% to 45%. The right wing’s cheering is muted, however, because this was one of those races for them where losing was a loss and winning was a bigger loss. The Democrats now have a poster-boy for GOP fecklessness against whom to run in 2014.
South Carolina’s polity is rather conservative. In November, Mitt Romney carried the First Congressional District with an 18% margin of victory. The last Democrat to represent the CD left office in 1981. The seat was vacant due to the appointment of Tim Scott (who won it in November) to the US Senate. This should have been a race decided largely in the Republican primary. However, this race was a bit unusual.
Mark Sanford resigned as governor of the state in disgrace in 2009. To touch on the lowlights of the scandal, he left his wife and four sons on Fathers’ Day week-end, told his staff he was going to hike the Appalachian Trail, and used state funds to fly to Argentina to hang out with his mistress. He returned, confessed, got kicked out of the house, is now engaged to his mistress, and recently violated a restraining order his ex-wife has taken out against him.
Since his trip to Buenos Aires, he has put on a show (perhaps a genuine one) of contrition and has harped on being imperfect and remorseful. There’s little the evangelicals in that part of the world love more than a good redemption story. Thanks to that and his name recognition, he prevailed in the GOP’s primary and the subsequent run-off. And despite his flaws, he was running against someone who would support President Obama’s agenda, so a great many conservative voters (in a low-turnout special election) backed him.
So now, the GOP has kept a seat it has held for decades, but the price is having to deal with Mark Sanford’s considerable baggage. For the Democrats (and comedians), this is a godsend. In the 2014 mid-term elections, the Dems needed someone to vilify and run against. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are awful, but they lack the pond-scum factor that Congressman Sanford offers. The man left his family for his “soul-mate,” abused the public purse, lied to the public, and went AWOF from his post as governor. If they can’t find a way to make all of that work for them, they should close up shop.
As for the Republicans, they really did all they could to stop him without actually turning out votes for Ms. Colbert Busch. The national party withheld funding, and not a single bigwig came to campaign with him. There is already talk of a primary challenge next year ahead of the mid-terms. Yet the damage is done. The media will watch him like a hawk, and bluntly speaking, his lack of self-control is going to cause trouble for him and his party.
During his campaign, he ostentatiously and laughably held a street-corner debate with a cardboard cut-out of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. For the next several months, the Democrats get to run against a very real Congressman Sanford. The lesson here is that the quality of the candidate matters.