Stephen Colbert's sister, Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, has lost in her race against Mark Sanford in a conservative district.
Sanford defeated 15 competitors in the primary to be the Republicans' choice.
As a reminder who this guy is, a bit of trivia: as Governor, he opposed the 'faith-based' state license plates being offered, but allowed them to pass without his signature.
He commented on them: "It is my personal view that the largest proclamation of one's faith ought to be in how one lives his life."
He'd get an irony of the month award from me were he a poster here.
Politicians can be narcissistic, but this guy.
John Edwards fell for a woman he worked with enough that she had his child. He cared a lot about Americans, but was pretty despicable to his wife. He's ruined politically.
Mark Sanford has about at least that level of behavior, but without the 'good side' caring about the welfare of citizens much as Edwards did. When he fell for someone, for a week, he simply disappeared to sleep with her as governor - leaving his wife and state police responsible for him with no idea where he was. It's so bogglingly narcissistic and irresponsible, it just stands out among bad sex scandals for politicians.
For comparison, New Jersey Jim McGreevey resigned as governor basically for being gay - like many gay men, with great intolerance, he had married a woman and had an affair with a man. For that he had to go. He's still out of office. He seems like a pretty great guy, other than having limited options and choosing a bad one that let him be accepted but hurt the woman he married. Had he not and been honest, shamefully for our society, he could not have been elected governor.
Anyway, the icing on the cake of who Sanford is is really shown by the narcissism that when he decided his district couldn't find a better member of Congress than him, he asked the wife he had cheated on - who had left him - to run his campaign. She was shocked and said no.
This conservative district that will eat up talk of morals and family values and respecting marriage (if you're straight) decided, that's our man.
In my opinion, it's just a shameful day for democracy that the voters of a congressional district make such a bad choice. That reflects on them, not Sanford.
It's all who the people want, and who can pay for the campaigns, I guess. A watchdog group that's more liberal had named him while governor one of the nation's 11 worst, in part for ethics violations, while the far-right Libertarian Cato institute named him America's best, for things like being the first governor who said he wanted to turn down stimulus money from the Obama administration for his state.
As far as being especially effective as governor - he vetoed the entire budget, and the legislature overrode his veto, one year.
The man just seems to me to be shameless and have very poor policies, and while I'm all for some 'redemption stories' - and there's no reason to question his statement how he fell in love with the Argentian woman while married, it happens - he was very irresponsible and just bizarre in his doing something like asking the ex-wife to do that. (She also called the police on him for stalking, secretly being in her house and fleeing).
Even if the voters wanted a 'conservative' - not my choice, but their right - they couldn't find a better one? The double standards for different politicians don't help.
David Vitter, caught not only with prostitutes (sorry, Governor Spitzer, that kills your being in office) but *ordering them from the Senate floor* - still a Senator.
OK, one last illustration of Sanford's hypocrisy - when Clinton got a blow job, Sanford said: "I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally [to resign]."
Re-elected.
Sanford defeated 15 competitors in the primary to be the Republicans' choice.
As a reminder who this guy is, a bit of trivia: as Governor, he opposed the 'faith-based' state license plates being offered, but allowed them to pass without his signature.
He commented on them: "It is my personal view that the largest proclamation of one's faith ought to be in how one lives his life."
He'd get an irony of the month award from me were he a poster here.
Politicians can be narcissistic, but this guy.
John Edwards fell for a woman he worked with enough that she had his child. He cared a lot about Americans, but was pretty despicable to his wife. He's ruined politically.
Mark Sanford has about at least that level of behavior, but without the 'good side' caring about the welfare of citizens much as Edwards did. When he fell for someone, for a week, he simply disappeared to sleep with her as governor - leaving his wife and state police responsible for him with no idea where he was. It's so bogglingly narcissistic and irresponsible, it just stands out among bad sex scandals for politicians.
For comparison, New Jersey Jim McGreevey resigned as governor basically for being gay - like many gay men, with great intolerance, he had married a woman and had an affair with a man. For that he had to go. He's still out of office. He seems like a pretty great guy, other than having limited options and choosing a bad one that let him be accepted but hurt the woman he married. Had he not and been honest, shamefully for our society, he could not have been elected governor.
Anyway, the icing on the cake of who Sanford is is really shown by the narcissism that when he decided his district couldn't find a better member of Congress than him, he asked the wife he had cheated on - who had left him - to run his campaign. She was shocked and said no.
This conservative district that will eat up talk of morals and family values and respecting marriage (if you're straight) decided, that's our man.
In my opinion, it's just a shameful day for democracy that the voters of a congressional district make such a bad choice. That reflects on them, not Sanford.
It's all who the people want, and who can pay for the campaigns, I guess. A watchdog group that's more liberal had named him while governor one of the nation's 11 worst, in part for ethics violations, while the far-right Libertarian Cato institute named him America's best, for things like being the first governor who said he wanted to turn down stimulus money from the Obama administration for his state.
As far as being especially effective as governor - he vetoed the entire budget, and the legislature overrode his veto, one year.
The man just seems to me to be shameless and have very poor policies, and while I'm all for some 'redemption stories' - and there's no reason to question his statement how he fell in love with the Argentian woman while married, it happens - he was very irresponsible and just bizarre in his doing something like asking the ex-wife to do that. (She also called the police on him for stalking, secretly being in her house and fleeing).
Even if the voters wanted a 'conservative' - not my choice, but their right - they couldn't find a better one? The double standards for different politicians don't help.
David Vitter, caught not only with prostitutes (sorry, Governor Spitzer, that kills your being in office) but *ordering them from the Senate floor* - still a Senator.
OK, one last illustration of Sanford's hypocrisy - when Clinton got a blow job, Sanford said: "I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally [to resign]."
Re-elected.
