Mark Sanford: Straight From the Bottle

Mark Sanford has won the election for the South Carolina's First Congressional district, and is heading to the United States House of Representatives. I can sum up my thoughts with both a .gif and with words. First, my reaction to Mark Sanford being elected last night can best be summed up by Julia Ormond:

Yeah, straight from the bottle. No need to waste any taxpayer money on a glass, baby. Just open 'er up, and take a swig. The fact that the Charleston area sent Mark Sanford to the United States House of Representatives illustrates several things.

As an initial matter, Sanford should not have been the candidate. He won by a comfortable margin, but in the last few days before the election this race was starting to look like the GOP's failure to make an easy layup. This district is Red, Red, Red. The GOP could have run a Labrador Puppy, and as long as it had an "R" by it's name, the puppy would have been the favorite.

Second, and as a corollary, it shows that the people of this district would rather send and admitted adulterer to Congress than a Democrat. Think about that for a second. The people of South Carolina, who are always portrayed as socially conservative and "puritanical" basically took a look at a deeply flawed man who went AWOL on the job to have an affair...and they decided to go with him rather than with a Democratic candidate. Basically, Ms. Colbert-Busch's political views were more distasteful than Sanford's personal flaws.

In winning you learn no lessons. In losing, you learn. The GOP won, so they think everything is fine. But what conclusions should the Democratic party draw from this election?

There's an old rule that William F. Buckley put forward back in the day: Support the most conservative candidate who is electable. The Democrats would do well to heed this rule. Not every state is the same. Not every district in a single state is the same. If the Democrats really wanted to win this seat, they should have found the most liberal candidate who was electable. As the results show, Ms. Colbert-Busch was not electable. Her accepting large donations from labor unions was a self-inflicted wound that cost her lots of votes in a district that just obtained a new Boeing plant despite the efforts of unions.

She tried to put a conservative spin on every liberal position. She said she was proud to live in a right-to-work state, but she took money from labor unions, while Boeing donated to Sanford. You can talk all you want, but the money talks. At the end of the day, people knew that Colbert-Busch was hiding her true liberal views, and Sanford was just being himself. The voters chose to go with the unfaithful, lying guy who was honest about his political views, rather than go with someone who they distrusted on the issues.

Overall, the race doesn't have broad implications. South Carolina is a deeply conservative state. Yeah, we already knew that, thanks. Folks from SC have a history of sending flawed people to Congress.

I personally think that Sanford is too flaky for the job. Going AWOL while Governor is unacceptable and (in my opinion) unforgivable. The only silver lining is that he isn't seeking executive office. He won't be "in charge" of anything. I wouldn't put him in charge of organizing a bake sale.

People will certainly make fun of South Carolina being a "punchline" for sending such a scandal-ridden person back to public office. But don't think for a second that South Carolina is different that other places. Illinois sent Jesse Jackson, Jr. to Congress while he was being treated for bi-polar disorder and plagued with scandals. New York sent Charles Rangel back to Congress even after he was basically exposed as a long-time tax cheat and formally censured. Heck, Massachusetts kept sending Ted Kennedy back to the Senate, and he killed a girl. To date, I am not aware of anyone that Sanford has killed.

So before all y'all in other parts of the country get on your high horse to judge South Carolina, look in the mirror. He won't be the most scandalous guy to make it to Congress. (I know, that isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.)