Mark Sanford Was the Governor of South Essay

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Mark Sanford was the governor of South Carolina. He was forced to resign in scandal, but today is trying to resurrect his political career. This paper will outline Sanford's political career, with particular emphasis on the scandal, Sanford's response and where he stands today with respect to his career.

Mark Sanford was elected as the governor of South Carolina and for the early part of his career was a generally unexceptional politician. He went about his job and built a career for himself that eventually landed him as governor of his state. He first came to public light in June of 2009, when he disappeared. News stories at the time highlighted that he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, which is a long distance trail, a portion of which runs through his state. The Trail is popular, and it is not at all unusual for people to hike portions of the trail either as day hikes or multi-day hikes. The trail is well-populated for that reason, so hiking a portion of the trail solo is also not unusual. What was unusual at the time was that a sitting governor would undertake such a hike solo, and that in the course of the supposed hike would fall completely out of contact. When Sanford had not been heard from for a few days, people began to inquire about his whereabouts. Initially, nobody would say where Sanford was, but eventually his staff members circulated the story about the Appalachian Trail in order to explain the governor's apparent disappearance (Orr, 2009).

Complicating the story is the fact that Sanford had been a vocal critic of President Obama for an incident where the President eluded his security detail to find some space for himself outside of Atlanta. Sanford was now doing the same thing, apparently disappearing and leaving his family for a hike (Ibid). With the governor having apparently disappeared, there was concern. People in his office began to discuss succession in case Sanford was no longer among the living, and others began to search for him on the Trail and make inquiries with other hikers if anybody had seen him.

It would come to light within a couple of days that Sanford was in fact not on the Appalachian Trail at all, but in Argentina.

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This trip was unknown to either his staffers or to his wife and children (Hamby & Keck, 2009). The trip to Argentina was to see his mistress, who hails from the South American country. Sanford was forced to admit his affair publicly, amid apologies to his wife. The scandal came to light when, instead of the Appalachian Trail, Sanford was spotted at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. At the time of the trip to Argentina, Sanford and his wife were separated so his wife was entirely unaware of the trip (Ibid). Sanford was, at the time, serving his second term as South Carolina's governor, and was prevented by law from serving a third time.

Sanford resigned his post as governor as the result of the scandal. This was necessary in part because Sanford had competed on a platform that included strong family values, something that is important to many conservative voters in South Carolina. An extramarital affair is a fairly high level of scandal in the state, and with Sanford disgraced he opted to continue as governor but curtail further political ambitions. Furthermore, until that point Sanford had been seen as a potential Presidential candidate for the Republican Party in 2012, so the affair was damaging to his career.

After the scandal, Sanford opted to stay out of the public light for a few years. He did not run for the Republican nomination in 2012, but would eventually resurface in a bid to resurrect his political career. There remained questions at the time as to whether Sanford could live down the extramarital affair in his attempt to resurrect his political career.

In January 2013, Sanford announced his intention to run for an open seat in the House of Representatives. By this time, circumstances had changed in his personal life. His wife filed for divorce as efforts at reconciliation apparently failed. Sanford had become engaged….....

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