BLUFFTON, S.C. — In the annals of political redemption stories, it is hard to top the one that former governor Mark Sanford (R) is attempting to write in South Carolina.
After a spectacular 2009 scandal that destroyed his marriage, spawned impeachment proceedings and saddled him with the biggest ethics fine in state history, Sanford is making a new start right back where he started his once-promising political career two decades ago — running for Congress in South Carolina’s 1st District.
The most amazing part: He’s got a good chance of winning.
“For all the obvious reasons, I thought politics was forever over for me,” Sanford said in an interview.
But in December, Jim DeMint shocked the state by leaving the Senate for a job running the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Then, Rep. Tim Scott (R) was named to fill DeMint’s seat, leaving an opening in Sanford’s old House district.
“It’s sort of a generational event. It never happens in South Carolina politics. A U.S. senator retires, and then a governor appoints, and then my phone lines light up,” Sanford said.
At the moment, Sanford is still one of 16 who are seeking the Republican nomination in a special election to fill the seat.
That means the man once touted as a GOP presidential prospect is spending his evenings in places like the Golden Corral family buffet here, where 13 of the contenders were making their cases at a Beaufort County Republican Party candidate forum Thursday night.
With each of them allotted only five minutes, Sanford, the first to speak, had an advantage that few of his rivals had, which is that people in the audience actually knew who he was.
Among his opponents was a high school economics teacher from Mount Pleasant, S.C., named Teddy Turner. He devoted his presentation to convincing the conservative audience that he had nothing in common with his father, CNN founder Ted Turner, or his former stepmother Jane Fonda, whom the younger Turner referred to as “Hanoi Jane.”
“How many of you get to pick your parents?” Turner lamented.
A few candidates later into the program, Tim Larkin, an engineer, looked around the room and declared: “I think the only folks I know here are my competitors.”
Even his opponents concede the former governor is all but certain to come in first in the March 19 primary, after which he will face the second-place finisher in a runoff two weeks later.
In a district that went nearly 60 percent for Mitt Romney in the last presidential contest, the winner of the GOP primary will have a big advantage in the May 7 special election. But that race, too, has a splash of excitement, given that the Democratic nominee is expected to be Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of Comedy Central star Stephen Colbert.
As he acknowledged, Sanford is the beneficiary of a unique set of circumstances — a short race, a big field, a hefty campaign treasury (including more than $120,000 in leftover funds from his congressional races, and, with some restrictions, more than $1 million donated to his gubernatorial campaigns) and the fact that pretty much everyone in the district has seen his name on the ballot five times before.
With campaign, Mark Sanford goes from Appalachian Trail to comeback trail
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With campaign, Mark Sanford goes from Appalachian Trail to comeback trail
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