South Carolina's major newspapers are already weighing in on Mark Sanford after his admission that he had an affair with an Argentine woman.
First up, Sanford's hometown paper, The (Charleston) Post and Courier. It's fairly forgiving--suggesting that Sanford should be able to survive this and make it through the last year-plus of his term.
Mr. Sanford's revelations at his Wednesday press conference were stunning in their content and by the sudden public presentation of his personal lapses. It's a scandal for sure, but not necessarily crippling to the remainder of his term.
More after the jump ...
The (Florence) Morning News personally thinks Sanford needs to go, but isn't willing to get the pitchforks out yet.
Do we want him to serve the final 18 months of his term? Probably not. Is it worth throwing him out of office? Probably not. We’re willing to wait and see how Sanford handles the fallout. We wonder if the issues of trust make it impossible for him to govern.
The Greenville News, while not making a call on whether Sanford should go, thinks he'll be severely crippled for the rest of his term.
Difficult decisions lay ahead for Mark Sanford and for the people of this state. Given the trust that he has squandered, it will be difficult for him to lead. An already shaky relationship with the Legislature will likely become more unstable and any progress in Columbia will be difficult for the remainder of Sanford's term.
Worse, the people of this state will have little reason to trust any statements that come from Sanford or out of his office.
The (Spartanburg) Herald-Journal isn't nearly as forgiving, saying that Sanford can't possibly put his family back together and still be governor.
As a father and a husband, Sanford is the only one who can work through this with his family, minimize the damage to his sons, make amends to his wife, and determine whether his family can be held together. He must be focused on those tasks.
He is not the only one who can lead this state through the current recession, and under the current circumstances, he cannot lead the state.
The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News thinks that this affair casts his battle against the stimulus package in a more ominous light.
For the entire five months he has waged his lonely war against federal stimulus money - the same battle that prompted him into national consideration for a run at the presidency - Sanford knew he was not in the right. He had acknowledged as much to his family, he told us Wednesday, but apparently carried on the Argentinian affair regardless of its absolute moral wrongness. The notorious noncompromiser, it seems, was compromised all along.
And finally, The Charlotte Observer--which has sizable readership in South Carolina (as far as Greenville and Columbia)--ticks off the numerous calamities that could have occurred while Sanford was AWOL in making the case for him to be forced out.
Forget, for now, the extramarital affair. For a chief executive of a state to remain unreachable for days – and apparently neither his staff nor the State Law Enforcement Division knew where he was or how to reach him – is a serious breach of duty. What if a tornado had scraped down Cherry Road in Rock Hill? What if the Catawba Nuclear Plant had a meltdown? What if a terrorist bombed the S.C. State House?