Sanford doesn't go to Argentina

As we all know, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) went last year on a hike down the Appalachian trail, which apparently also involves having sex with an Argentinian woman.

Had this affair not been revealed, would he have been a frontrunner in the primaries for 2012?
 
Quite possibly, though I don't think he could've countered Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. He'd get some of Newt's voters following the inevitable implosion, but that's it. Palin, Romney, Pawlenty all take way too much ideological and psephological space to have a reasonable shot at the nomination. He had minor campaign finance dustups in Congress and as governor, so that would be unnecessary baggage. He could be Tim Pawlenty's VP- a conservative Southerner without the megawattage of Bobby Jindal eclipsing Pawlenty altogether.
 
Depends on how long into the primary process he can keep the affair secret. From what I remember of the coverage, the affair had been going on for a while before Sanford took his famous hike down the Appalachian Trail. If the affair still happens, keeping it secret last summer is sort of a pyrrhic victory; he's only going to be even more screwed when it comes out later. And the way the media and opponent's researchers dig into candidates' pasts these days, it's pretty much certain to come out. Just imagine how bad this looks after Sanford's already won a couple primaries.
 
Not a frontrunner, but a reasonable second-tier candidate - somewhere around as viable as Daniels or Thune. If he surprises in Iowa and holds his own in New Hampshire, then he could have a shot. Smart money is still on Romney though.

Of course that is assuming that he doesn't have an affair. If he still has the affair and it just isn't discovered when it was IOTL, then that situation comes with the potential of blowing all to hell and gone at any moment. He is the Republican John Edwards for 2012.
 
Sanford would have had a good chance at the White House. He had executive and legislative experience. He could appeal to both the religious right and to the libertarian factions of the Republican Party. He was drawing attention as a potential candidate before the affair.
I'm not sure how the current Republican nominee for Governor would fare had the Sanford scandal not occurred. People may have been more inclined to believe the Haley rumors. (OTOH, she got the frontrunner status primarily due to an endorsement from the former Governor of Alaska...)
 
It's worth remembering that one of the early primaries is in Sanford's home state. If he kept the affair secret, left office in 2011 as a popular governor, and then decided to run for president, he'd probably have a good chance of winning the South Carolina primary. Even if he couldn't win in the bigger states after South Carolina, his endorsement would become much more valuable when he dropped out. He could even parlay that into a VP spot. And of course the more influential he becomes, the bigger the inevitable shitstorm when the affair is exposed.
 
You need 2/3, and Sanford could not win Iowa, since Romney has a lock on NH. Sanford, like his fellow Deep Southerner Newt, is a walking IED that will go off spectacularly eventually. In this political era, you cannot hide anything from the media- they will find out as they did with the North Carolinian lowlife. Depends who the nominee is. Romney and Daniels have their pick already, while Pawlenty's team would do thorough vetting that would raise a million red flags and nix that. Palin, with an inexperienced team, might pick him, and then both parts of the ticket are radioactive.
 
People may have been more inclined to believe the Haley rumors. (OTOH, she got the frontrunner status primarily due to an endor$ement from the former Governor of Massachusetts..)

FIFY. ;)...

(There is also the possibility that nobody would have been sleazy enough to invent rumors of an affair with Haley, if the state weren't already hurting from Sanford's stupidity.)
 
... is a walking IED that will go off spectacularly eventually.


This.

Sanford was stupid enough to think he could get away with his hiking story so, if he got away with something that idiotic once, he simply would have tried something as equally or even more stupid later on.

With each "success", people with Sanford's personality push the envelope harder and more often until the inevitable crash.
 
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