One wonders where the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and its affiliated coastal chambers -- including the powerful Myrtle Beach chamber -- has put their collective outrage. Defying their years-long, multi-million-dollar advertising and promotional campaigns to establish South Carolina's coast as a vacation destination, Still-Governor Mark Sanford has once again departed his state to spend his tourism dollars elsewhere. When Sanford ran for governor in 2002, he ridiculed then-Governor Jim Hodges's work to build the state's economic infrastructure; today Sanford is the ridiculous one, leaving the state behind for the long July 4th weekend, the biggest economic engine driving the state's largest industry.
Nowhere in the media is it made clear whether he's left the reins to Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, but past practice suggests that Bauer needn't adjust his plans.
What's clear is that Sanford is vacating to Florida's Loblolly Bay, described as a gated community in Hobe Sound, where Jenny Sullivan Sanford and the couple's four boys have been holed up for the past several days with Jenny's parents. For Sanford, it's a sort of homecoming, as he's originally from Fort Lauderdale in the Sunshine State. Of course, locating there guarantees the Sanfords and Sullivans some opportunity to caucus far from the prying eyes of the South Carolinians they're no longer governing. And it's is 554 miles closer to Buenos Aires, too, should those caucuses turn out poorly.
By now a half-dozen of the state's largest newspapers, with editorial boards leaning both left and right, have called for his resignation. More than half of the members of South Carolina's Senate -- including the Republican Senate President Pro Tem and the Republican Senate Majority Leader, and a knot of the most powerful Republican members of that august body -- have called for his resignation. And while no real tally has been conducted of the Republican-majority House, even many of Sanford's acolytes in that body have edged closer in public comments to calling for his resignation. U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham recuses himself from judging his fellow Republican, as he plays Godfather to the youngest of Mark and Jenny's junior quartet. And U.S. Senator Jim DeMint, another dyed-in-the-wool Sanford, can only bring himself to say publicly that the governor should "make the right decision."
No rational person mistakes DeMint's meaning, or Graham's odd recusal; the full panoply of South Carolina's Republican leadership has concluded that he's a stain on their brand. We know so because Karen Floyd, freshly-minted chairwoman of the South Carolina Republican Party and an operative from Sanford's own political mold, finally pronounced the party's own wisdom this week, and it wasn't a ringing endorsement of his continued service in the office.
So, Why?
Why does Sanford hang on?
In an email to his campaign contributors a week ago, Sanford offered more of the milquetoast sop that was revealed in his mash notes to Maria d'Argentina. He said he'd considered resigning but thought it was too easy an escape, that standing pat and learning his lessons would put him in better stead for whatever "doors" God intended to open for his future. That's more than just dog-whistle to the religious right, it states squarely that Sanford believes he'll continue in some leadership role in conservative politics.
Can he really be contemplating a future in Republican politics? Even salvaging his presidential ambitions?
Thanks to old-timey political calculation by post-Reconstruction lawmakers more than a century ago, Sanford occupies some prime real estate in public office. In fact, he may be one of the safest chief executives across the 50 states. Fearing that the state's population of minorities might one day become a majority of voters, the drafters of the 1890s-era Constitution gave South Carolina's governor the weakest set of powers imaginable. Everything he does is checked and balanced -- and easily checkmated or overturned -- by the legislature and the judiciary.
But the same fears -- that minority voters might overwhelm the state's legislature with minority officeholders -- led those drafters to draw very narrow options for removing a governor from office. Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell -- a man so Republican that he holds "rank" as a Confederate officer among the Civil War re-enactor community -- stated as much in a statement two days ago: "Neither I nor my colleagues in the General Assembly can require that the governor resign. That decision is his alone."
The only option available to lawmakers seeking Sanford's removal is to declare him disabled, and only certain people can do that: Three of four state officers -- the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, the Attorney General and the Comptroller General -- must sign letters to the Senate President Pro Tem and Speaker of the House declaring that the governor is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office."
Chances of that occurring are nil. Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom has been Sanford's most reliable political partner during the past six and a half years, and Attorney General Henry McMaster has already declared himself a candidate for governor in next year's election. Aiding in the removal of Sanford would promote McMaster's potential rival, Bauer, to the top spot and allow Bauer to run as the incumbent. Treasurer Converse Chellis wouldn't be principly opposed to removing Sanford; Sanford sought to appoint a different treasurer when his Charleston pal Thomas Ravenel was convicted of cocaine charges and removed from office, but the legislature asserted its authority and installed one of its own, the former Rep. Chellis, in the post. Secretary of State Mark Hammond might sign such a letter -- Hammond raised the option in the first place -- but the question is moot without the certainty that McMaster and Chellis would join him.
These collected facts mean that, as Sen. Glenn McConnell wrote, only Sanford can determine whether Sanford keeps or leaves his office. If Sanford's primary focus is on preserving his marriage, and protecting the long-term viability of the Republican brand, he resigns. But if those concerns are secondary to his own political ambitions, he stays.
So far, there's every indication that his political ambitions remain primary. Even his oh-so-public acts to reconcile with Jenny seem calculated -- the quick trip to visit her and boys at the plantation last week, and his decision to chase them to Florida for this weekend -- as he tries to present the image of what a good, Christian man would do. But his emails to la bella Argentine tell a different story: While his wife was likely his best political partner, he hasn't been "in love" with her for some years, and Maria herself is Mark's "soul mate." Likewise Sanford's loopy comments to the media this week: His tryst with Maria Maria was no mere affair, it was a "love story." Calculation and re-framing of this sort is not beyond Sanford; he characterized Bill Clinton's efforts to continue focusing on the work of the presidency while an impeachment action proceeded as "strategic," too.
Indeed, the only coherent reason for Sanford to insist upon remaining in office while South Carolinians shake their heads, while legislators stare in amazement, and while the state and national Republican Party leaders gnash their teeth, is that Sanford fully intends to carry on a career in politics. To accomplish that, he has tried to adopt Bill Clinton's strategies without the benefit of Clinton's unique talents or the atmospherics of the late 1990s.
So long as Sanford remains in office, he has the advantages of the office -- the spotlight, a communications operation at state expense, etc -- that he would have to re-establish on his own if he resigned. He continues to command state and national media coverage, coverage that would dry up if he returned to private life. And he is insulated from the worst criticism of most fellow Republicans, notwithstanding Bill Bennett and the few others who have called on him to step down.
Commentators engaging in armchair psychology during the past week have called Sanford "narcissistic," from his erratic opening press conference through each successive new revelation and reversal.
But South Carolinians who have observed him more closely over the past several years might skip "narcissistic" and proceed directly to "sociopathic" as the operative adjective. Sociopaths exhibit glib and superficial charm, and aren't self-conscious or afraid to say anything; Sanford fits the bill. Sociopaths exhibit an inflated sense of their abilities and self-worth; they believe they are superior human beings. Sanford clearly believes that his lieutenant governor cannot handle the reins of government, though South Carolinians have elected Bauer as many times to statewide office as they've elected Sanford.
Sociopaths show a need for stimulation and are prone to boredom unless they take chances or risks. Some are pathological liars. Many are manipulative, exploitive and callous, without concern for needs of their victims. Sanford reveled in opposing Barack Obama on the subject of stimulus funds, just as he has opposed state lawmakers for the past six-plus years. And despite the great needs of South Carolinians, Sanford shows more concern with his own preparedness for "whatever doors" God opens next for him.
Sociopaths lack real remorse or guilt, lack of empathy. Sanford has made himself an expert apologizer, even apologizing for making reporters stand in the hot sun while covering his affair this week, but repetition of the words is numbing. And many people have noted the lack of real feeling in his boilerplate comments about Jenny and his sons.
Sociopaths don't take responsibility for their own actions. Sanford has certainly said all the right words, but his deeds reflect a hidden motive. He hasn't honored his duties, he manipulated his staff, and he has tried to reframe his behavior in words that soften the harsh reality.
Sanford's victims comprise an entire state, from the partisans he has persuaded to support his agenda, to the lawmakers he has marginalized in pursuit of that agenda, to the party leaders crippled by his stubbornness, to the rank-and-file citizens who have suffered under his poor leadership and who continue to suffer while he "learns his lessons" and occupies -- as an invading force occupies -- South Carolina's governor's office. And at present, we have no constitutional recourse.
South Carolina is Mark Sanford's world; we only live in it.