It was probably the last thing I would have expected. On Wednesday, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted that it was a strange woman at the root of his spectacular meltdown.
He'd been gone for six days, and his staff said he was out hiking the Appalachian Trail. On Wednesday, he said he'd been in Argentina with a woman he'd had an affair with for a year.
Whether it will signal the end of a political career that had lots of topspin, time will tell. You can bet, though, his credibility is shot right now, his conservative agenda is damaged, and he might as well cancel any Presidential plans for 2012.
Am I disappointed? You'd better believe it.
Sanford built his political career around being different. A maverick before it became a buzzword. A stand-up guy who followed his own convictions, no matter what the folks in his own party had to say about it.
Because of this, I became a big Sanford fan. It doesn't hurt that he's not pure Republican; the best way I can describe his politics is that he's a libertarian in elephant's clothing. If it wasn't for his almost total lack of charisma, and the fact Sarah Palin looks much better on a campaign poster, Sanford may well have been the Party's vice presidential candidate last year. And he may have made some difference, too, as the McCain camp did its level best to muzzle Palin after her nomination and she became a non-factor.
For a guy like Sanford, pulling a creep with an Argentinan hottie seems awfully, well, common. Drinking and womanizing are historically favorite hobbies of your run-of-the-mill politicians. If an implosion was in the cards for Sanford, I would have expected something more ... creative?
Running off to follow Widespread Panic would have been more of what I would have expected. Or renouncing civilization, growing a beard, and living among the grizzly bears. Being snatched by aliens. A trip to rehab to break a raging Mountain Dew habit. Or forming an ashram with Jerry Brown.
Even without the Argtentinan firecracker, Sanford would have been hard pressed to excuse his actions. There's no way around that. But I think the public is much quicker to forgive if he'd merely taken off without notice to go on what Australians call a "walkabout."
Before Sanford's Wednesday afternoon news conference, I began to think his adventure had something much deeper at bottom. Although I would be reaching to suggest something like a meltdown from depression, that did cross my mind.
As a depressive in good standing, I can tell you a little about this. We depressives are capable of doing some pretty bizarre things while on an extended low. Disappearing acts can be part of it. Impulsive behavior can be a part of it.
Of course I'm reaching here, but events of the past few months could trigger a meltdown if Sanford was prone to such things. He'd been in a fight with the state legislature over his stance on accepting federal bailout money. He watched as the legislature overrode all 10 of his gubernatorial vetoes, and the unspoken signal the House and Senate sent him was, "what do we need you for?" Even a well-balanced person can approach the razor's edge of sanity after all that.
Again, I'm not suggesting depression for Sanford, and it's extremely dangerous for a layman -- even a well-meaning layman -- to play curbstone psychiatrist. In fact, the world be a much brighter place if a whole bunch of these self-appointed "psych experts" were eaten by piranhas.
I'd hate to think Sanford pooched his political career over some South American woman. He said he does plan to stay in office to try to "rebuild the people's trust." Unlike the Eliot Spitzers, John Edwardses, and John Ensigns of this world, Sanford is one officeholder who is worth it.
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